Vladimir Kostyuchenko, who served as a helicopter pilot during three tours for the Soviet military in Afghanistan, says he's still haunted by his time there. (Tom Lasseter/MCT)From McClatchy News:
MOSCOW — Thirty years ago this week, the Red Army began its invasion of Afghanistan, a move that sank the Soviet Union in a decade of guerrilla war and hastened the collapse of the Cold War empire.
Today, as former Soviet soldiers watch American troops trying to pacify the same stretches of Afghan land they once fought for, aging Soviet generals and grunts alike are reminded of a war they'd rather forget.
While Russians are willing, and often eager, to predict utter defeat for U.S. efforts based on their own failure in Afghanistan, they're much less comfortable talking about the pain of reportedly having lost more than 14,000 lives in a war that ended in retreat.
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My Comment: These Russian soldiers understand the Afghan culture and history .... do we? My guess is that few if any soldiers/politicians in the West are paying any attention to what these Soviet veterans are saying.
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