ceasar the soviet afghan war and of course you can always get the latest news around the clock on our web site that's g w dot com or follow us on twitter or instagram at unionists and their interests and in berlin for me the entire team here at u.w. news thanks so much for watching. i call you and i'm game did you know that 17 trillion land on the market killed worldwide here but it's not just the animals little suffering the spear armor if you want to know how always picked up the crease i'm a hunch was strange just as easy to listen to our podcast on the green funds.

those who see the boots a soviet made no maybe check. the trousers a soviet a weapon soviet. built soviet jacket soviet you can see from the options in the magazine soviet the backpack soviet. the puck over the afghan cap and this he is a real afghan. radio the world.

sautoy. yaws it was the 25th of december 179 when the soviets entered afghanistan mission on all of us i a little it was around 2300 hours 1130. you suddenly heard the infernal din of tanks and planes. got up and went outside and we saw thousands of tanks coming into afghanistan via the north road. and that went on for days and days the commercial media and the people that are in the information that i was given and that i could gather 100000 soviet troops had just invaded afghanistan. the soviet intervention didn't just happen by chance afghanistan was a buffer state trapped between the u.s.s.r. in the north and iran in the west pakistan to the south and east and china in the

north east the soviet union and afghanistan had traditionally been on friendly terms lenin's russia had been the 1st country to recognize afghanistan's independence in 1900 afghanistan was the 1st to recognize the soviet union in 1922 . the 2 nations had long maintained a close relationship with the soviet supported afghanistan in a variety of areas such as agriculture the development of infrastructure and training the afghan army. moscow was cobbles leading economic partner that afghanistan remains an independent sovereign state. it was a marriage of both love and practicality. but it

ended paradoxically on the 27th of april $978.00. the day the afghan communists came to power in a bloody coup d'etat in kabul. question if not the stop soviet leader leonid brezhnev was against unarmed intervention in afghanistan he wasn't against sending aid including in the form of military advisers like afghanistan fell into a bloody and chaotic civil war it wasn't clear how the crisis in the ruling communist party might be resolved you thought he could be used to prove between march in 1979 and december 979 when the soviet union does invade several things change one is that the tensions within the ruling party become much worse. and not only are many of the party members of the week recently sidelined but even the 2 ruling how key leaders are mohamed and.

and have his will i mean are increasingly at odds with each other. several things would change direction as opinion for your peace efforts were in decline they don't and peace was his baby but it also office will be from the american perspective the soviet union is also using the day this kind of period of detente to expand its influence in the 3rd world. 175 of course we have the downfall of south vietnam and the reunification of vietnam as a communist state and afghanistan then seems to fit into this pattern i think the problem for britain of personally the reason to become so amenable to the idea of removing the me is that his embrace of it was very it was very public right he made a point of saying don't worry you'll be ok we'll support you when he misses when he visits moscow in 1979 and sees him off at the airport that he goes back and then

he's arrested and killed and so then version of also sees this not just as a political insult to the soviet union but as a personal insult to himself. once his rival was out of the way i mean undertook new revolutionary reforms in the country they took no account of traditional culture. and were widely misunderstood by the public. far from sticking to stop trying i mean provoked the soviets by installing a dictatorship in afghanistan and oppressing the people many of the afghan military deserted and joined the mujahideen. in the soviet kind of mindset of the fall of 1979 where they're worried about the united states taking advantage of the situation in afghanistan it almost seems like i mean is deliberately destabilizing the country and look deliberately destabilizing the leadership on top of that they're receiving subsidies that i mean

had met with americans and of course there's the fact that i mean had studied in the united states right so suddenly these kind of aspects of his biography and his behavior which on their own would not even be that suspicious start to come together and start to kind of point to the idea that i mean might be working with the cia. in total secrecy the red army invaded afghanistan at the end of december 1979 the soviets assassinated i mean and replaced him with the kremlin loyalist kamel. an air bridge to kabul marked the start of a bloody conflict one that was to be defined the engagement of the cold war it would seal the fate of the communist bloc and the soviet union it would change the world. this is a fellow's. long and the united nations jordan. it is

a deliberate effort of a powerful atheistic government to subjugate an islamic people. for a long time but you wouldn't remember what. the. number have gone by we don't know how many and it goes on in the world read only. you know. there was a meeting between british never and his closest advisors when they decided to intervene in afghanistan away to the point of instant reduction the only document we now have about it is titled the situation in a the. citrus and the letter a is in quotation marks. doc a look at us so there was

a climate of secrecy it was conspiratorial even some of the politburo were not told immediately and wouldn't learn about it until early 1980. s. the soviet people would learn from press reports that there's a limited contingent of troops that had been sent at the request of the afghan government to help them reestablish order and that this contingent would not stay long and that it was either a friendly country and they were there to help them as they've been doing for years etc etc that i said that the soviets had wanted to get out of afghanistan almost from the moment that they went in right so they were there from 1900 in 1989 but they had never intended to be there for 10 years and they were looking for a way out very early on so already in 1983. when they decided this they made a mistake they didn't talk about the duration of the occupation of iraq how long would our troops stay there a month a year 2 years 3 years or so in my opinion that was very important as they have

vents that followed proved but even the intervention and the deployment of troops was warmly welcomed by the americans visits it was as if they wanted the soviet union to intervene militarily somewhere or other sure it's august when that happened in afghanistan they were well pleased will still. be another pretty united states and other western countries wanted to soviet union to get involved in a war that would weaken the country economically militarily and politically and that's exactly what happened to scare from the military the professional military as far as we know was very happy with this decision and they were actually warned. they'd warned the civilian leadership that it would be a mistake. we had good relations with the afghans not a word to say deployment of troops was welcomed by the populations for sure. but

soon began the so-called resistance short of who tries to trash the words. because they quickly started to receive lots of money from the pakistan. it was clear the americans were giving money to the much high deans through pakistan to do this for you you know who i am want to hear they didn't catch who they made war against it was normal thing that we were going to do they were always as well with so much that i'm snooker you sustain you in the skilled job you know that when you idea we were a group of about 20 or maybe 30 i was i had seen and many were very young men. i had some very good friends in that group may they rest in peace and may god be merciful to them they are martyrs. we planned the attack well i asked them have you got incendiary bullets they replied yes we have i asked them to find out which vehicle in the soviet convoy was carrying the reserve if you want us

to look at it and to tell me if it was in the front or the middle of the convoy that was not the shells we waited on a slope for the convoy to arrive and then we fired at the field tanker after that the convoy was blocked. the armored cars caught fire and the russians were all killed at the that's how it happened. after that attack we seized 30 or 40 weapons. see jimmy sell all we're going to. merge group. one of our units was caught in an ambush. come on the one of my friends had command of the unit the fighting was very brutal . some were beheaded or had their eyes pushed down on.

your wrist but you. are the 1st thing you feel when your friend is dead is a desire for revenge. but i'm still i thought about the magazine in my weapon and i wanted to empty it into my enemies were sitting where it should get what we're. going to use this desire for revenge overrides everything else but. just where mr butler there are 3 futures for the actual civility can they the soviet reaction was a sort of genocide by deportation to see due to the regime or populations that lived along the big roads connecting afghan cities to the borders of pakistan and iran and were routed and pushed out of the country. that would extend your sis was moscow's strategy in central asia and the 1920 s. and early thirty's the release of the 12 to surround isolate and destroy because.

20. 3000000 afghans pledged to pakistan 2902000000 to iraq but who's here i mean both pakistan and iran were pursuing their own interests in the region and played a big role in the afghan resistance and resistance of the city was. this is it is civility it to a new dawn in the soviet public was kept in the dark about what was going on in afghanistan. soviet media was under the complete control of the communist party. the press radio television. they only reported on what was happening abroad in a very limited and filtered way even before the intervention the soviet regime was not very popular. there was a general disinterest in politics and the lack of belief in communism was more the

regime couldn't ensure supplies of basic necessities is the keepin you really thought if they can't even do that what good are they are. 6 regime the tenuous hope of reprobation with the west was ended by the intervention in afghanistan with the consequences were clear. there were sanctions against the soviet union and in bargo on cereals and technology and the boycott of the moscow olympic games in 1980 . in terms of image afghanistan was absolutely catastrophic for the soviet union. even and men died i remember the absolutely soporific spectacle of these old fossils carrying the coffins of leaders of the politburo who were all over 70 years old. afi images of the funeral images

of the regime on its deathbed. the soviet union was in its death throes yet the old guard chose another sick old man to succeed. yuri andropov. both. of yuri andropov was a man of the k.g.b. . he headed the k.g.b. the secret service and secret police for 967th 1982. embodied the golden age of the k.g.b. with its vast operations abroad in latin america and africa. me. and they claim he also represents a time when dissidents were arrested and put in psychiatric hospitals a period of repression. a little her on the path.

andropov wanted dialogue with the united states. but when he came to power soviet american relations were very bad so. or rather east west relations. but by could he do it was a phase that couldn't be called a cold war anymore a chilly war maybe commando nice west relations had again deteriorated though not because of and dropoffs rise to power the process had begun in the 2nd half of the 1970 s. priscu led because. most often don't assume what it is and this was something. i. feel you need to seek. i'm a pilot in the soviet air force my name is bloody made a coalition a cough. for coming here to afghanistan. i only know

what i've been told which in reality means absolutely nothing naturally i had my doubts. but i knew that if i came here. anything could happen to me with some of which it sir. you're not on julie doot over the top 100 ton elite as time went on doubts grew out of walk or because there were huge losses it could be and the soldiers who came back alive began to talk about the atrocities they'd suffered. or that they'd inflicted. because both sides were violent people and all that began to attract criticism slope lucas's model of the us you see dear de critique. my mission today was to seek out caravans and targets to strike. and i think the only people who could understand

how i feel and what we experience here are those who were in the vietnam war. they lived through the same thing and were exposed to the same dangers that we are. and all countries and all societies people look out for themselves their own daily problems and i don't the soviet union people don't know about what goes on in afghanistan was an ordinary north korea when we go back there are people who will ask us questions but i know now that they won't understand anything about our life here you see him going next door this is a really dirty war. you speak to me this way and. if i'm a sucker do socks on express one theory blah the famous coffins in which the dead were transported homes were sealed so the families couldn't see their loved ones. and they suffered because they imagined the worst. more and

more the war was no longer seen as legitimate by the soviet people who said. they started asking questions and there was anger when they found out they'd been lied to. and you proof is us. sometimes we have to transport coffins. and there's a voice i have to say that was the most difficult part of our mission bringing back those confidence in them or. for us not one single mother accepted our explanation that our son had fulfilled his duty and had been a good soldier for of over. such words had no meaning for a mother's heart. and sure. nothing could replace the son who'd been killed

ocean throwing to comfort them was the hardest thing for us as. do said the arrival of these coffins change not public opinion the opinion of civil society look you'll see less and less the c.d.c. little fallen soldiers wives and mothers would come to embody the rejection of this war in afghanistan to sit to do sit on that getting stoned. but for the united states the war in afghanistan was a godsend it's allowed the country to justify its own foreign policy.

i mean it's in 1901 ronald reagan became u.s. president in 1983 he delivered his famous evil empire speech. i unscrewed the ponies devote more. he gave this speech to evangelical christians it may not break in the view that many religious people in the us were pacifists who might become an obstacle to his aggressive policies against the soviet union is. to ignore the facts of history in the aggressive impulses of an evil empire to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. you know as in vietnam the soviets were hoping you know the americans we. were always hoping that it would be the south vietnamese who would deal with the communist insurgency and that the americans would just be there in a supporting role. carrying out some operations but mostly focusing on training and

intelligence etc and in a very similar way this is what the soviets were hoping that their military could do in afghanistan also as the case was in vietnam it was very hard to maintain security once an operation was finished. so the american forces were pulled back to their forward bases and once again the terrain would be threatened would be open. and of course both shared a kind of yeah but that's a materialist idea of what it would take to win the majority of the population over to their own side i mean the soviets also thought ok when you to do economic development we need to provide aid we need to provide you know food and medicine all of these things and that will make people more amenable to the communist government in afghanistan. and so they spent a lot of resources on this. of course in the end there wasn't enough i

was. informed of course just when i tell my andropov who was very ill at the design it was proof that his worst fears were true a series of events supported and belief that the united states wanted to provoke a war is it as we needed to know the particular game that there must be if it is not. just being there whether they learned of it but you are going to go by the town of sharif. a tiny dangerous here. from here on words is the most dangerous zone in the region. if you just look at that we control this route from 8 o'clock to 6 o'clock and a little bit at night it's controlled by the mujahideen vision of the day watch us and sometimes fire at us during the day to know. where the british troops the locals. look out take cover they're firing up ahead.

of man. but their love for a rocket landed right in front of our tank but at the bottom graduations comrade capitalists. what if the mujahideen and your weapons are a bit better but nobody would ever see your film you. know because it doesn't in 1985 the city it became clear to the us that the resistance would last also afghan doing good looking humans human in the muslim world have realized that this wasn't just a proxy war between the. soviets and the americans he thought of wanted because it

was the sort of justified muslim resistance. to man city assume america recently got the reagan administration sense that it's now had political cover to supply aircraft weapons to resistance groups and together with its pakistani allies you know google is a strong. but where the americans aiding the right side while the mujahideen declared jihad or holy war to drive the soviet occupiers out of their country other extremist groups took advantage of the situation. was. together with the pakistani secret service they tricked the americans a large portion of the american military aid fell into the hands of radical fundamentalist groups including one led by a certain osama bin ladden. there

were also resistance fighters for whom no us help arrived like those in pan shia valley in the northeast of the country they had to fend for themselves doing whatever they could to secure weapons. against all of us here in the valley of i'm sure. we have nothing but soviet weapons. weapons captured from the enemy. leading the pan hsieh mujahideen was a 28 year old commander a comment shah massoud with no support from the us he managed the impossible he resisted the red army. repeatedly the most powerful force in the world.

we have no direct or indirect relations with the americans. and. during the last attack no one came to our aid. the articles in american newspapers are lies. since they aren't true. muscle his natural charisma and his military exploits against the soviets made him a symbol of the afghan resistance he was respected as a commander and loved as a person but apart from his strategic and military talents he was known in pan shia for establishing a community based on respect for islam even today he remains a legendary figure. richard. sued was

young tall handsome with fine features no office. myself shortly after he was very charismatic and well spoken so work making sure he had a big effect on people he was friendly here a chapter that i'm can a book on as a me those there's no doubt that he was a gifted military strategist and an exceptional talent but i want to stress his humanistic values he was a great humanist but as a church observer matter one bit. he was the most peaceful man i ever knew but he found himself in the worst of circumstances war. so even while afghanistan was at war with the soviets he was thinking about the future about the schools that should be built about the education of the next generation. he tried to flee that's before me or some my pleasure. i

can only say positive things about my suit. he was intelligent sophisticated and he never made irrational decisions. for he always kept his word however difficult that might be he did a great deal for his people who do this or you support him in. while must sued for the red army life in moscow continued as normal until the day when the aged constantine chen yanker who had succeeded and dropoff died in march 1905 a younger man came to power a new face in the kremlin the fate of afghanistan and of the soviet union would change forever. i love sit for our. goal but short of. the hour had come for mikhail gorbachev the heir apparent to under a part of the became general secretary of the communist party of the soviet union

no one knew then that he would be the last and he was different from his predecessors much younger 54. he was born in 1931 near stefano paul in the caucasus if you did he had humble origins his father and grandfather were peasants. he would prove to be a good authority on agricultural matters that was his trademark. that's why he was called to moscow. in 1980 he became a member of the polish. galleys magicked that's another his rapid rise was due to his charisma and also his age and his easy manner. he could give speeches without notes 6 pretty improvised views is some for the soviet people observing his demeanor it was something completely new he liked appearing in

public which was also unusual all devolved his predecessors had had very little direct contact with the people places or have a clip of gorbachev visited factories spoke with people was interested in every day problems. to play. a legend there was a sense that a new era was beginning to release a new. no you took. with him one of the well i don't know what this war is about why they have to be millions of deaths. what are we fighting for. this. this is their country and i think they can take the responsibility for it themselves. they can decide their future and vote for the policies they want. to believe. being he makes no sense it's

a mistake on. the list for the ship. psych 1985 was the most atrocious year of the war in afghanistan. gorbachev came to power and the generals wanted to persuade him that winning was still possible. it meant pulling out all the stops before the resistance fighters got american anti aircraft weapons i. wish the d. said in 1905 tens of thousands of peasants and their livestock were killed zam but it was too late if you. were equipped with those american anti aircraft guns. they were suddenly able to shoot down on average one so be a plane in one soviet helicopter pre-date both use and no soviet pilot wanted to be part of that statistic but. the result was that from 1986 the

resistance fighters were also active during the day see soviet air operations only took place at night because the pilots were afraid of being shot down. so the ground troops lost their air support you and the soviet occupation was doing. looking for some civility could. have been. deficient in afghanistan was a thorn in gorbachev's side it was referred to as the russian vietnam it was a war with big losses and for which the people suffered. it also presented a foreign policy problem. if god but chose couldn't find a solution to the problem the west would see him as no different to his predecessors of ache because as far as the west was concerned if the affair went on unresolved it meant nothing had changed in the soviet union meaning if you know morning also be cool he really had to show that his policy had changed and that the

soviet union was moving into a new era when he had to draw a line under it do it wouldn't be easy because the americans were quite standoffish to begin with. you weren't sure who they were dealing with. slowly he was able to build up confidence by making a lot of concessions. go back to the concessions were mostly on his side. ready to storm. democrat is very very serious they will tell us the printer issue and yes yes you will yes i love you lie you can start this is you do sort of lose interest or what are you so when you start to build it was russian or were you know spoke whole again down to a very modest through both it reasonably safe stop me if you were. going to stand to come on the show i was sent back to afghanistan as commander of the 40th

army and head of all soviet forces in afghanistan stand. in the middle that's my mission was can. to bring home our troops we see where this pretty good morning but how could a little valley with only 5000 men and 700 weapons stop the red army reputed to be the most powerful in the world. so it's thanks to the structure of the valley with its mountains and rivers that was good for us and bad for the enemy. masood defied the soviets for 10 years they never managed to take his strongholds the pan hsieh valley he also held the key to a successful withdrawal of soviet troops because his mujahideen controlled part of the routes linking kabul and the u.s.s.r. his relationship to groom off was respectful almost friendly. yes the shit is worse

the service guy never met my pseudonym punchy always on neutral territory of the bunch then we put a horde of prigs on the main road from kabul to the sun long past the weather punchier valley begins. we agreed on a particular site i arrived by helicopter and he came on horseback all by jeep a woman in a marsh accompanied by his bodyguards powers in his sister who. nobody here is the earth which. is a virginia. d.c. . this is there. is a when you thought that. yes there was no war so. that when i was on the bridge i didn't expect to be greeted by my eldest son crib and i was overcome by emotions. i felt relief but also dispatched us to board

as if i suddenly became aware of all the responsibility that i had carried all those years and. nirvana and the nervous tension was immense sucked because the situation had been very hard and complicated really organism i had a feeling of total emptiness as i crossed the bridge i had the impression that my life was over i was completely burnt out. just they were the during the 1980 s. everything had revolved around afghanistan. just like it hand for hundreds of thousands of soviet family business. and for my own friends and family as for me often there's the $990.00 s. begat usually difficult as that destroyed our country to moshe's to. the mood in the soviet union tunde voices critical of go but self in the ruling

elite grew louder people called to him to resign they wanted real change. glasnost and perestroika failed. the economic crisis hit the country hard shops were empty the people no longer believed in god but shelf all the future of communism. but his policies had opened pandora's box there was no stopping the course of history. 9 months after the soviet withdrawal from afghanistan the burning world found.

even in moscow statues were toppled they started with that of felixstowe as in ski the founder of the cheka the forerunner of the k.g.b. . the growing discontent became more more focused on those in power in the kremlin. one after another selfie at socialist republics declared independence. the days of communism and the soviet union were numbered. most it gathered good still i get that he's a. afghanistan war was the catalyst for the fall of the u.s.s.r. it played an important role. for one thing it exposed the military weakness of the red army. which wasn't able to control the situation on the ground. also the war showed that the soviet economy was no longer strong enough to finance

such a conflict. it shone a light on the structural problems of the regime. and it undermined the myth of proletarian internationalism put in the idea that the powerful soviet union should help developing countries. beyond the one small country was able to defy a superpower. that us had gone it to so that led the u.s.s.r. to question its identity including its capacity to go toe to toe with the united states as the war in afghanistan raised some very painful questions in the soviet union. again. february 1909 marked the end of what's known as the soviet invasion of afghanistan

or the afghanistan war or as moscow called it sending a limited contingent to aid a brother country. the end of the conflict brought great relief to the multi-ethnic populations of both afghanistan and the soviet union it was to be the last armed conflict of the cold war. but it had taken a heavy toll around 2000000 dead on the afghan side 15000 soviet soldiers killed and millions when days. there were countless victims of landmines and there was mass population displacement. with around 6000000 people fleeing to pakistan and iran. it was a war that would change the face of the world a devastated afghanistan fell into a bloody civil war in which the islamist taliban would emerge responses of a new source of international terrorism it's no coincidence that the country is

known as the graveyard of empires that's certainly true when it comes to the soviet union and a half years after withdrawing its troops in december 1991 it ceased to exist. because india. how can a country's economy grow harmony with its people being violent when there are doers look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges and whose people are striving to create a sustainable future clever projects from europe and india eco. connect on the table. in good shape.

uses. it makes us happy. and music makes us healthy. research shows that those who see regularly live. so sing and it will keep you good. for 30 minutes on g.w. . in the far north. it's lonely. and breathtakingly beautiful. the arctic. sea take a journey around the north pole meet profiteers and talk with people experiencing

the changing environment through the ice disappears earlier and it keeps retreating our future depends on what happens here. in northern whites place within the arctic circle stuart's december 21st t.w. . this is did over you news in these are our top stories and germany will enter a tougher coronavirus lock down a starting on a wednesday with schools and a non-essential stores is set to close this comes amid a surge in deaths in recent weeks has their machall appealed to germans to limit their social contacts in the.