Galbas, Michael Pflichterfüllung

Erinnerungen an den sowjetischen Afghanistankrieg in Russland

When NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, they left the country to its fate. The USSR had done much the same several decades earlier. Between 1979 and 1989, it intervened in Afghanistan with over 600,000 soldiers but failed to pacify the country in the long terma failure that ultimately led to the withdrawal of troops and the collapse of the government then in power. Approximately 15,000 Soviet citizens lost their lives in what was the longest war in Soviet history. Drawing on original life-history interviews, this study examines how former Soviet combatants in Russia remember the war today, the significance they attribute to it, and how theyas a groupseek recognition from the Russian government and society for their service. Volume 10 in the series *Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas".