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The Soviet War in Afghanistan | Overview, Causes & Timeline | Spetsnaz - AMP — Transcript

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0:00Are the shoes Soviet?
0:02No, maybe Czech.
0:05The Soviet pants,
0:07the Soviet weapon, the Soviet belt,
0:11the Soviet jacket as evidenced by the buttons,
0:15the Soviet magazine,
0:17the Soviet backpack. The Afghan pakol beret.
0:21And that's a good Afghan face.
1:53On December 25, 1979,
1:56when the Soviets entered Afghanistan, it was 11 p.m., 11:30 p.m.
2:03when suddenly we heard the infernal noise of tanks and planes.
2:08We got up.
2:11We left the house,
2:13and we saw thousands of tanks returning to Afghanistan
2:17by the northern route.
2:21And this lasted for days.
2:26According to the information
2:27I was given and was able to obtain,
2:31100,000 Soviet soldiers
2:34invaded Afghanistan.
2:40This Soviet intervention is not the result of chance.
2:43Afghanistan is a buffer state stuck between the USSR
2:46to the north, Iran to the west, Pakistan to the south
2:50and east and China to the northeast.
2:53the USSR and Afghanistan have always been the best friends in the world.
2:57Lenin's Russia was the first to recognize
3:00Afghanistan upon its independence in 1919.
3:05Afghanistan would be the first country to
3:07recognize the Soviet Union in 1922,
3:13throughout the 20th century.
3:14Relations between the two countries are excellent.
3:17The Soviet Union
3:18is very present with numerous cooperation programs
3:22in various fields such as agriculture, infrastructure construction
3:26and training of the Afghan army.
3:32Moscow is Kabul's first economic partner,
3:35but Afghanistan remains an independent, free and sovereign country.
3:42The marriage of love and reason between the two countries
3:46paradoxically ended on April 27, 1978.
3:50The day the Afghan communists took power in a bloody coup
3:54in Kabul.
4:09Brezhnev at first was opposed to the intervention of troops in Afghanistan.
4:14He is not opposed to sending aid,
4:16including in the form of military advisers.
4:19Afghanistan is plunged into a bloody civil war.
4:22There is chaos brewing.
4:23We do not really know how the crisis
4:27within the ruling Communist Party will be resolved
4:30. Between March and December 1979,
4:34when the Soviet Union had not yet invaded the country.
4:38Several things are changing.
4:40On the one hand, tensions within the Afghan Communist Party are worsening
4:44and more and more party members are being sidelined.
4:47And even the two leaders of the Afghan Communist Party, Mohammed Taraki
4:52and Hafizullah Amin,
4:53are increasingly at odds with each other.
4:56Which will make Brezhnev change his mind.
4:59There are several things,
5:01the decline of relaxation, relaxation is a bit like its baby.
5:08From the American point of view.
5:09the Soviet Union
5:10abuses this period of détente to strengthen its hold on the world.
5:15For example, in 1975 we have the fall of Saigon in South Vietnam
5:19and then the reunification of Vietnam as a communist country.
5:23And Afghanistan seems to fit the same pattern.
5:27Brezhnev, personally, was reluctant to support Amin.
5:31Publicly,
5:31he supported and welcomed Taraki to Moscow
5:35during his visit in 1979.
5:37Brezhnev told him Don't worry, when you return
5:40to Afghanistan, you will have our full support.
5:44But when
5:45Taraki returns to his country, he is arrested and murdered.
5:49And Brezhnev saw this and considered it a political offense,
5:52but also and above all a personal insult.
5:58Comrade
5:58Amin having killed his rival Taraki, Brezhnev's friend.
6:02He undertakes new revolutionary reforms
6:05which do not take into account ancestral cultures
6:07and which are poorly understood by the population.
6:11Amin, far from the Brezhnev doctrine, does not listen to Moscow
6:14and provokes the Soviet authorities by establishing in Afghanistan
6:17a dictatorship that oppresses the people.
6:20Within the Afghan army, many soldiers desert
6:23and join the maquis.
6:31In the fall of 1979.
6:33The Soviets are very afraid that the Americans will take
6:36advantage of this situation in Afghanistan.
6:39It seemed likely to them that Amin was
6:42deliberately provoking them to destabilize the region.
6:46In addition, the Soviets learned that Amin had met with Americans.
6:50This was
6:51simply because he had studied in the United States
6:54and suddenly these aspects of his biography
6:57became suspect in the eyes of the Soviets.
7:02They thought
7:02Amin was a CIA agent.
7:17In complete secrecy,
7:18at the end of December 1979, the Red Army invaded Afghanistan.
7:23Amin is assassinated by the Soviets and replaced by a pawn of
7:26Moscow loyal to the Kremlin, Babak Karmal.
7:30An airlift over Kabul marks the start of a bloody war
7:33that will be the last conflict of the Cold War.
7:35A conflict which will seal the fate of the communist bloc and the Soviet Union,
7:40leading to its fall.
7:41A war that will change the face of the world.
8:25At the time of the meeting
8:27between Brezhnev and his closest advisors.
8:30When we finally decide to intervene in Afghanistan,
8:34to send troops to Afghanistan, the document we currently have
8:37is the only written document we have. This document is called
8:42On the situation in “A” and we put the letter A in quotation marks.
8:48So a climate.
8:49secret, ultra secret, conspiracy.
8:51Some of the members of the Politburo are not immediately informed;
8:55they will learn that at the beginning of 80.
8:57So what can we say about the Soviet population obviously, who
9:00will obviously learn in the press that there was a limited contingent
9:03following at a request from the Afghan regime which was sent simply to help them
9:09in a somewhat difficult context to restore order.
9:12But this contingent will not stay and in any case, we are not there.
9:16It's a friendly country, we're here to help them,
9:17look at what we've been doing for years, etc. etc.
9:21When I was first sent to Afghanistan,
9:23the only question I had
9:25was how long I was going to stay there, because in the
9:28Soviet Union it was a peaceful life, whatever that was.
9:32And whatever anyone says.
9:34And then I suddenly found myself in a completely different situation.
9:39I found myself at war.
9:41Of course, it was unexpected for everyone.
9:43The objective was clear, but it would have been necessary to determine from the start
9:47how long it would take to achieve it, and then to be able to move on.
9:53The Soviets wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan almost as soon as they arrived
9:57there, they stayed there for ten years, from 1979 to 1989.
10:01But they had no intention of doing so.
10:03They looked for a solution to leave the country from the beginning of 1980.
10:09When they made this decision, they made a mistake.
10:12They didn't talk about how long the occupation would last,
10:15how long our armies would stay. A month ?
10:19a year ? two years ? three years ? and in my opinion, it was very important.
10:24And the events that followed demonstrated it.
10:28This intervention,
10:29the deployment of troops, was very positively
10:33received by the Americans because they wanted it.
10:36They wanted the Soviet Union
10:39to intervene militarily somewhere
10:43and there was Afghanistan.
10:45What's better for them?
10:46They were very happy
10:49because it was
10:49clear that the United States and other Western countries
10:53were doing everything to get the Soviet Union bogged down in a war, to weaken it
10:58economically, militarily, politically.
11:02And with Afghanistan,
11:04that's exactly what happened.
11:12The army, the professional soldiers, as we
11:15know, were not very happy with this decision.
11:19And they even warned civilian leaders
11:22that it was a big mistake.
11:24The Soviet Army was intended to fight a war in Europe.
11:29This was their first goal.
11:32Their main mission was to protect the Soviet Union
11:36against another Second World War, against a NATO attack
11:40and to be ready in the event of a nuclear attack.
11:44But they did not want to fight
11:45in the maquis, in a guerrilla war in Afghanistan and they knew it.
11:50They knew this was not what they were trained for.
11:53And of course, they understood that if the war did not go well,
11:57they would be held solely responsible and they would have a bad image.
12:04We had good relations with the Afghans.
12:07Our intervention, the deployment of our troops
12:10was received with joy by the population.
12:13They welcomed us, but immediately there was
12:16so-called resistance.
12:19I emphasize this so-called word because they immediately
12:22started receiving a lot of money from Pakistan.
12:26It is clear that it was the Americans who, through
12:29Pakistan, gave money to the so-called mujahideen.
12:33They didn't care who to go to war with.
12:35They were used to doing it their whole lives.
12:38They were always in a state of war against someone.
12:43The basic Afghan resistance, if I may say so,
12:46was truly spontaneous and popular.
12:50The countryside has evaded
12:53obedience to the central government, having become reviled
12:56because it is so anti-Muslim, among other things.
13:00We were a group of about 20 or maybe 30 mujahideen,
13:04and many were very young.
13:05I had very good friends in this group.
13:07May they rest in peace.
13:08May God forgive them.
13:09They are martyrs.
13:11We therefore planned and prepared the attack well.
13:16I would have asked
13:18do you have incendiary bullets?
13:21They told me yes, we have some.
13:23So I asked them to find out where
13:25the vehicle carrying the fuel reserve
13:27was in the Soviet convoy .
13:30Tell me if he's at the beginning or in the middle of the convoy.
13:34We waited for the convoy to arrive uphill.
13:38Then we first shot at the vehicle
13:40with the reserve fuel tank.
13:44Then the convoy was blocked
13:47and the tanks caught fire and the Soviets were all killed.
13:51This is how it happened.
13:53So after this attack, we were able to recover
13:5630 or 40 weapons.
14:32One of our group
14:34found themselves in an ambush.
14:41A friend of mine who everyone knows here commanded this group.
14:45The fighting was very violent.
14:47Some had their heads cut off.
14:49Their eyes were gouged out.
14:54The first thing you feel when your friend is dead
14:59is the desire to avenge him.
15:02It's the desire to take revenge.
15:09I think about this magazine in my gun
15:13and I want to empty it on these enemies.
15:17The feeling of revenge trumps everything else.
15:22The Soviet reaction was what might be
15:26called a kind of genocide by deportation.
15:30Pushing
15:31all the regions located between the circular road
15:35which connects Afghan cities to each other
15:37and the Pakistani or Iranian border pushed all these populations
15:42from the big border outwards,
15:45according to the Soviet strategy used in
15:49Central Asia in the 1920s and at the beginning of the 30s
15:53surrounds, isolates, crushes.
15:58This therefore put 3 million Afghans in the hands
16:01of the Pakistanis and 2 million Afghans in the hands of the Iranians,
16:04allowing both the Pakistanis and the Iranians
16:08to play their own card and their own preference
16:14in what was becoming an Afghan resistance. widespread.
16:21Soviet society is kept in
16:24total ignorance of what is happening in Afghanistan.
16:27She is kept in the dark because it is necessary to understand
16:29that the Soviet media are in the hands of the Communist Party.
16:33The press, radio and television are controlled.
16:36We never learn what is really happening abroad
16:40through the Soviet media which are filtered, which are controlled.
16:44The popularity of the Soviet regime
16:46before the intervention was very low.
16:49You have
16:50at least a disinterest, even a depoliticization, towards the regime.
16:54We don't really believe in communism.
16:56Did you say shortages for the simplest things?
17:00So a regime that does not know how to feed its people.
17:02What is this diet?
17:04So, this fragile spirit of rapprochement with the West will definitely
17:09be killed by Afghanistan, since we know the consequences.
17:14Sanctions taken against the Soviet Union, grain embargo,
17:18technology embargo, boycott
17:21of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.
17:25In terms of image, Afghanistan was absolutely catastrophic.
17:28For the USSR
17:46Then we arrive at the death of Brezhnev.
17:48His funeral will last
17:51several days.
17:54On television, we will see the coffin
17:57on Red Square.
18:02I remember this absolutely soporific spectacle.
18:06Indeed, old croutons carrying the coffins
18:09of people from the Politburo who were all over 70 years old.
18:15The distressing spectacle of those at this funeral
18:18and his funeral is the image of a regime in agony.
18:23In agony.
18:24the Soviet Union is and the old guard in power
18:28appoints a sick old man to succeed Brezhnev.
18:31Yuri Andropov.
18:35Yuri Andropov.
18:36We know him as the KGB man.
18:37He headed the KGB.
18:40The KGB
18:40is the Russian secret service, the political police.
18:43Dual function, political police, secret services.
18:45Between 67 and 82.
18:48This is the one to which we attach a golden age period to the KGB.
18:52The major operations that had been launched
18:55under Andropov abroad
18:58were KGB operations
19:00in Africa, in Latin America.
19:03This is the time when dissidents are arrested and
19:05locked up in psychiatric hospitals.
19:08The time of repression.
19:11So Andropov was keen to initiate
19:17a dialogue with the United States.
19:19But in fact, when he came to power, the situation was almost paralyzed.
19:24US-Soviet relations are very bad.
19:27We can even say East-West relations are very bad.
19:30They have entered a phase that cannot be described as a
19:33cold war, but rather a fresh war since we are not at the intensity
19:37of the real cold war.
19:38But we are still in a deterioration of
19:42East-West relations which ultimately does not date from his accession
19:48to the general secretariat which is earlier
19:50since the deterioration of relations actually begins
19:54in the second half of the 1970s.
20:21I am a pilot
20:22in the forces air force of the Soviet army.
20:26My name is Vladimir Kolesnikov.
20:31Before coming here to Afghanistan,
20:33I only had a subjective vision
20:36based on what
20:37I was told, which was absolutely nothing in reality.
20:43Naturally, I had my doubts
20:47and I knew that by coming here,
20:49anything could happen to me.
20:51Gradually, of course, doubts will appear
20:56and the doubts will appear
20:57all the more as we will see losses and enormous losses
21:02and as the young soldiers who return
21:06for those who return alive
21:09will still speak and begin to tell stories. the atrocities
21:13they suffered or committed, since the violence
21:16took place on both sides.
21:18And all this will gradually give rise
21:21to criticism.
21:24Today my mission was to search for caravans
21:28and take down targets.
21:33I think the only people who can understand how I feel
21:36and what we see here
21:38are those who fought in the Vietnam War.
21:42They experienced the same thing.
21:46They were exposed to the same danger as us.
21:48In all countries, in all societies,
21:50people deal with their own lives,
21:53their problems, everyday life.
21:54And in the Soviet Union,
21:56people don't know anything about what's happening here in Afghanistan.
22:00But when we return, there are people who will ask us
22:02questions, they will ask us questions.
22:07I already know that they will not understand anything
22:09of what we are going through here, because here, it really is a dirty war.
22:15The famous zinc coffins, according to the terrible expression
22:18which refers to the fact that the remains return in closed coffins
22:24and that the families ultimately feel deprived of their mourning.
22:28And obviously
22:30even more anxious because they imagine the worst.
22:33All this will
22:36obviously contribute to a deterioration of the image
22:39of this war which is no longer at all legitimate
22:43and which raises questions and a lot of anger
22:47on the part of this Soviet population which realizes
22:50that it is being lied to, who realizes that ultimately,
22:54the army was never welcome in Afghanistan.
22:58And all this will arouse more and more incomprehension
23:02in the face of a war of which the population no longer understands
23:08that it has the slightest legitimacy.
23:20We sometimes bring coffins home, to the country.
23:26But I'm not wrong when I say that the most difficult part of our mission,
23:29for me and my comrades,
23:32is transporting and bringing back coffins. mutilated because no mother
23:35Because no mother
23:36accepts our explanations about the son who fulfilled his international duty well
23:43and who was a good soldier.
23:45For a mother's heart words have no importance
23:49and nothing can replace her killed son.
23:54Consoling them
23:54for us
23:56is really very, very hard.
24:15Through this one of these famous
24:20zinc coffins will enter the fray, one could say.
24:24Civil opinion, civil society,
24:27women, the mothers of soldiers who ultimately
24:31will embody a form of rejection
24:35of this war in Afghanistan.
24:39If Russian society rejects this war,
24:41the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is a boon for the United States,
24:45which thus justifies its international policy.
24:50In 1983 you have Reagan in power
24:56and it's the year of the famous Evil Empire speech.
24:59So Ronald Reagan actually constructed his entire policy.
25:02His electoral campaign on an anti-Soviet message
25:07versus Jimmy Carter, who was ultimately accused of having been very weak
25:12and of having ultimately given too much
25:15during the negotiations during détente
25:18and ultimately of not having made the best of the game So
25:22, it is this extremely strong message from Reagan
25:25that he developed between 80 and 83.
25:29And there, the theme of the Evil Empire is also a way
25:33of justifying the choices he made.
25:36The statements he made during the electoral period.
25:43A speech he gives
25:45to a religious assembly.
25:48Reagan is very aware that in the United States itself,
25:51there is a pacifism of a religious nature
25:55which can be an obstacle
25:58in his extremely hawkish policy
26:00towards the USSR.
26:14Reagan will be portrayed in Soviet propaganda as an
26:17absolute warfighter, as a cowboy always ready to draw and shoot.
26:28Are we occupiers, as they say in the United States,
26:32in the West?
26:38Do we live
26:39or occupy in Afghan palaces or houses?
26:44No.
26:45We live in tents or in houses
26:48that we built with our materials.
26:54We eat our own food, imported from USSR,
26:58to meet our needs.
27:04The only thing we take without paying in this country is the air,
27:08the air we breathe there.
27:16There is no difference between the
27:18Soviet war in Afghanistan and the American war in Vietnam.
27:23The Americans in Vietnam hoped that it would be the South Vietnamese
27:26who would wage war against the Northern Communists,
27:30that the American army would be there only
27:32as support.
27:35Focusing mainly on training
27:36and intelligence missions.
27:40Similarly,
27:42this is what the Soviets also
27:43hoped their armies would do with the Afghan army in Afghanistan.
27:46But as in Vietnam, it was very difficult to maintain
27:49security once operations were over.
27:53In Vietnam, when American forces returned to their base,
27:57the territory was once again in the hands of the communist North Vietnamese.
28:02The Americans and the Soviets had the same tactics, they spent
28:06a lot of money to rally the majority of the population to their cause.
28:10The Soviets thought so too.
28:12They helped them develop their economy, provided them with aid,
28:15food, care
28:19so that the population became
28:20manageable and accountable to the Afghan communist government.
28:24So they spent a lot of resources and money.
28:26But ultimately, as in Vietnam, it was not effective.
28:35And for Andropov, who at that moment was very ill,
28:39it was the confirmation of his worst fears and we were going to see
28:42a simultaneity of several events which were going to increase Andropov's thesis
28:48that the United States wanted to provoke war.
28:57We're going to go through the town of Charikar,
29:00it's super dangerous around here,
29:04from there
29:05begins the most dangerous area in the region.
29:11We control
29:13this road from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
29:16After the evening, it is under the control of the mujahideen.
29:21They observe us and sometimes they shoot us during the day.
30:32Be careful, get down guys
30:38and hide, it's shooting ahead.
30:53There was a rocket that fell
30:54right in front of our armored vehicle.
30:58I congratulate you, comrade capitalist.
31:03Because if the mujahideen aimed correctly with your weapons,
31:06no one would ever see your images again.
31:15From the moment the United States
31:18decided, after 1985,
31:23that this Afghan resistance was lasting,
31:26that international Muslim opinion was won over to the idea
31:31that it was not essentially a war between Americans
31:35and Soviets mediated by Afghans, but that this Afghan resistance
31:38was real and deep and oh so Muslim.
31:43It was at this time that the Americans felt
31:47with the Reagan administration that they had the necessary political cover
31:50with their Pakistani allies to send
31:54anti-aircraft weapons to the resistance group.
32:01But the
32:02Americans do not help those they should
32:05if the resistance groups declare jihad, the holy war
32:08to regain freedom and drive the Soviet army from their country,
32:12certain extremist groups take advantage of the situation.
32:18They are allying themselves with Pakistani secret services to fool the Americans.
32:23Thus, the majority of American aid weapons and munitions
32:27will fall into the hands of radical fundamentalist groups,
32:31starting with a group led by a certain
32:33Bin Laden.
32:42On the other hand, in Panchir, a valley in the northeast of the country,
32:46a people resisted Soviet attacks.
32:48No American aid arrives here and the recovery of equipment
32:52of all kinds is legion.
32:54In Panchir, it's DIY
32:56and system D.
33:02Here
33:03in the Panchir valley, we have nothing other than Soviet weapons
33:11taken and recovered from the enemy.
33:20At the head of these mujahideen, these resistance fighters.
33:23A young 28-year-old commander, Ahmad Shah
33:26Massoud, of Tajik ethnicity.
33:30Massoud is ignored by the Americans, but he will still succeed
33:33the impossible, stand up to and resist the Red Army.
33:37Yet renowned for being the most powerful in the world.
33:42I say clearly that we have no
33:46direct or indirect relations with the Americans.
33:50And last attack, none helped me.
33:53And the articles that appeared
33:57in the United States.
34:01It is not fair.
34:02It's all full of lies and it's not true.
34:06His charm, his natural charisma and his military exploits
34:09against the Soviets will make him the symbol of the Afghan resistance.
34:15We respected the leader, we loved the man.
34:18But in the valley, in addition to his talents as a strategist and fighter,
34:22he is especially recognized for having established in Panchir
34:25the structures of a state system based on respect for Islam.
34:30Ahmad Shah Massoud
34:32was a young man, tall, handsome, with a
34:36fine face, very charismatic, speaking well and clearly.
34:42He had a great influence on people
34:46and he was very kind.
34:51He was an exceptional figure
34:53in the history of Afghanistan.
34:55He was popular.
34:57He was not recognizable among the people.
35:00He was
35:02like camouflage among people.
35:05He was with people without any difference.
35:12Concerning his military actions,
35:15there is no doubt that he was a true strategist
35:18and had an exceptional military spirit and talent.
35:22But his human values
35:24were much more obvious and this must be emphasized.
35:28He was a great humanist.
35:31As I often say,
35:33he was the most peaceful man I knew.
35:36But who found himself in the worst situation, war.
35:41And even when Afghanistan was fighting the Soviets,
35:46he thought long term.
35:48He was thinking about schools.
35:49He was thinking about their future construction.
35:53He was preparing places so that the children could already study.
35:58Massoud
35:59I have very positive feelings towards him.
36:03He was a very intelligent, cultured person
36:06who never made rash decisions.
36:09He always kept his word.
36:11As difficult as it is and at the same time,
36:14he is someone who has really done a lot for his people.
36:20While Massoud resists the Red Army
36:22in Moscow, Soviet life passes slowly under Lenin's gaze.
36:27Until the day when old Chernenko who had succeeded Andropov died.
36:31We are in March 1985 and a young man succeeds him.
36:36A new Soviet leader
36:38who will weigh on the destiny of Afghanistan and the USSR
36:43So this time,
36:44it's his time Gorbachev, the heir of Andropov,
36:48and ascends to the post of general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union .
36:54And this will therefore be the last general secretary.
36:57So, the man is ultimately the polar opposite of his predecessors
37:00since he is only around fifty years old.
37:02He was born in 1931 in Stavropol, in the Caucasus.
37:05He is a man who comes from the province.
37:08He is a man of modest origins.
37:10He is the grandson and son of a farmer
37:13and he will establish himself as a very good specialist in agricultural issues.
37:17This is his trademark, one could say,
37:20and this is what will justify
37:23that he was gradually called back to Moscow
37:27and that he joined the political bureau in 1980.
37:31So a fairly rapid career which is due
37:36to the charisma of the character who
37:38also still resembles his predecessors, but not only in his age.
37:42He is someone who has ease.
37:46He expresses himself without notes, he improvises.
37:49And that, for the Soviet population
37:52who observed his behavior.
37:56It's completely new, we see it reaching out to the population.
38:00And that too is something very new since
38:03his predecessors had very, very little direct contact with the population.
38:08Gorbachev visits factories, he speaks, he speaks.
38:10We see him
38:12taking a close interest
38:14in the daily lives of his fellow citizens.
38:17So all the signs show that we are in a new era.
38:31I don't understand what this war is for.
38:35Why do there have to be millions of deaths?
38:39In what name are we doing this?
38:41Why are we fighting?
38:43This is their country,
38:47and I think they can fend for themselves
38:51and decide their future.
38:54They will choose the party they want.
38:59Our presence here has no meaning.
39:02It is a mistake.
39:43The year 1985 was the most atrocious of the entire Soviet war.
39:47Because Gorbachev had just come to power and the generals wanted to
39:50persuade Gorbachev, we can win, but we have to pull out all the stops
39:56before the entire
39:58American air force arrives in the bush.
40:01So this year of 85 was a rolling mill
40:05of tens and tens of thousands of peasants with their exterminated herds.
40:10Then, as soon as anti-aircraft weapons appeared in the maquis,
40:16the statistic
40:18of one Soviet plane or helicopter shot down per day was enough for no
40:25Soviet pilot to want to be part of this statistic.
40:28The result, when I speak of day and night, is that we
40:32who circulated through the maquis at night until 1985, from 1986,
40:39circulated during the day. And Soviet air transport
40:43only operated at night.
40:46he was so afraid of being shot.
40:48And as soon as the occupying forces on the ground
40:51lost their air support.
40:54the Soviet Occupation was doomed.
40:59When Gorbachev came to power and perestroika began,
41:04he understood.
41:05Or more precisely, I think someone whispered to him that six years in Afghanistan,
41:11for our troops, was far too much.
41:17A lot of money spent too.
41:19Material, financial, moral and human resources were wasted
41:25and it was not good
41:26for us and our country.
41:29Especially since at the time, we often heard,
41:32including in the Soviet Union, that in 6 years we had still not managed
41:37to achieve a single victory in Afghanistan.
41:44Afghanistan is a defeat, a thorn in Gorbachev's side
41:48because
41:49it is a war called Russian Vietnam.
41:52This is a war in which the Soviet Union
41:54has suffered enormous losses, in which the population is suffering.
41:58This is also a problem in foreign policy,
42:01because ultimately, as long as he has not resolved
42:05this issue
42:08in the West, we will
42:11ultimately judge him with the usual look, saying
42:13as long as the matter is not resolved, until
42:16this war is over.
42:18Finally, the Soviet Union continues to remain in its previous logic,
42:23so it absolutely must demonstrate that it has moved
42:27to a policy other than the USSR and
42:29is entering another era, hence the crucial necessity for it
42:34to settle this matter.
42:36Everything is not going to be easy because Americans, initially,
42:39are extremely reserved.
42:41I said it, since they don't know which foot to dance on,
42:43but gradually, confidence will be established
42:46and it will be established, in particular
42:47because Gorbachev will make a lot of concessions.
42:50He's the one who does the most.
43:17I returned to Afghanistan
43:20as commander of the 40th Army.
43:23and leader of all Soviet forces present
43:26in Afghanistan.
43:30My mission was very clear
43:32to prepare the exit of the troops and evacuate our army
43:36without losses.
43:38How does a small valley
43:39like yours, with 5,000 men but only 700 weapons,
43:42manage to keep in check the army reputed to be the most powerful in the world?
43:46the Red Army.
43:47The structure of the valley,
43:50the mountain, the river, for us, is very good.
43:53And for the enemy, it's very bad.
43:59Massoud held out for ten years
44:01against the Soviets who were never able to take his stronghold, the Panshir valley.
44:06He holds the
44:06key to a successful withdrawal because his mujahideen control
44:09part of the road linking Kabul to the USSR.
44:13With General Gromov,
44:15the understanding is respectful, cordial.
44:20With Massoud,
44:22we never
44:23met in Panjshir, but always on neutral ground.
44:27For example on the main road
44:30which connects Kabul to the Salang pass,
44:33where the Panjshir valley begins.
44:37We agreed on a very specific location.
44:40I came by helicopter and he came on horseback,
44:43or in a Jeep, accompanied by one or two of his guards of course.
46:27I can tell you that behind me, there are no more Soviet soldiers.
46:32Thus ends our stay of more than nine years.
46:36Ah well, there's your son.
47:06When I crossed the bridge, I didn't expect to be greeted by my eldest son.
47:11I was overflowing with emotion and at the same time, I was overwhelmed
47:14by both a sense of relief and despair.
47:19As I understood at that precise moment, I had carried
47:23an enormous responsibility on my shoulders during these long years
47:27and the nervous tension was immense,
47:30because the situation had been very difficult and very complicated.
47:34This nervous tension caused me a feeling of
47:37total emptiness.
47:37When I crossed that bridge,
47:40I felt like my life was over.
47:43And yes, inside, I felt a great emptiness.
47:47During those 1980s, my whole life was linked to Afghanistan,
47:51as were the lives of hundreds of thousands of Soviet families,
47:54as were those of my friends and my own family.
47:59And suddenly, after this war, the beginning of the 1990s arrived
48:02, years so
48:05difficult that they destroyed our country.
48:34Indeed, in the Soviet Union, slogans changed,
48:38speech became freer and criticism became
48:41more and more virulent against Gorbachev and the government.
48:44The people demand his resignation
48:47and want real changes.
48:58Gorbachev failed with his perestroika.
49:08The economic crisis is hitting the country hard.
49:11The stores are still empty and the population no longer believes
49:15in Gorbachev or in the bright future of communism.
49:21But with perestroika and glasnost, he opened Pandora's box
49:25and initiated an irreversible movement.
49:28History is in progress.
49:32Nine months after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan,
49:35on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
49:40Freedom triumphs.
49:44And even in Moscow, statues are torn down.
49:47Starting with those of Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka, the ancestor of the KGB.
49:54The discontent
49:55is intensifying, is more and more bitter against the power
49:59and the republics, one after the other, demand their independence.
50:03The hours of communism and the Soviet Union
50:06are numbered.
50:17This war in Afghanistan was clearly
50:19a catalyst for the collapse of the USSR.
50:24But it plays an extremely important role because, on the one hand, it
50:29exposes military difficulties since the Soviet army
50:36did not failed to resolve the issue on the ground.
50:41It lays bare the military cost that the Soviet economy
50:45and Soviet society are no longer able to support.
50:49And so there, this refers to the structural problems of the regime.
50:53And then it also lays bare
50:56this myth of proletarian internationalism, of this great
50:59communist Soviet power coming to the aid of developing countries
51:05and which finds itself brutally challenged
51:08by a small country which stands up to this great power.
51:12And all of this obviously raises very deep questions
51:16for the USSR about its identity,
51:19about its ability to develop, about its ability to stand up
51:25in the USA. So, there are many, many extremely painful things
51:28in reality that are at stake in this Afghan question.
51:34What was called the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or the Afghan War
51:39and which Moscow has always insisted on calling the sending of a limited contingent
51:43to help a brother country, ended in February 1989,
51:48to the great relief of the Afghan populations. and Soviet,
51:52both multi-ethnic and multicultural.
51:57The Soviet invasion, or the sending of a limited contingent, as
52:00the Russians say, is the last conflict of the Cold War.
52:05A conflict with a heavy toll
52:07between 1,200,000 and 2 million dead on the Afghan side,
52:1120,000 dead on the Soviet side and millions of wounded
52:15crippled for life, victims of antipersonnel mines.
52:18The horrors of a war which also displaced 10 million Afghans
52:22and created more than 6 million refugees in Pakistan and Iran.
52:28A war that will change the face of the world.
52:30Because if Afghanistan is a totally destroyed country,
52:34it will fall into an equally bloody and dramatic civil war,
52:38with later the emergence of the Taliban and new international terrorism.
52:44And it is no coincidence that, on this land nicknamed
52:47since the dawn of time the cemetery of empires,
52:50Afghanistan was the tomb of the USSR.
52:54A Soviet Union which ceased to exist
52:56two and a half years after the withdrawal of his troops in December
53:001991.

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