37 Years Since Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan: A Legacy of Conflict and Resilience

Today, February 15, marks the 37th anniversary of the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The event, concluded in 1989, brought an end to a decade-long military intervention that would fundamentally reshape Afghanistan and send shockwaves through the international system, contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

The Soviet Union’s fateful intervention began in December 1979, when the Red Army crossed the Amu Darya river, ostensibly at the invitation of the Afghan government to stabilize the country. In reality, the operation was a decisive Cold War move to preserve a pro-Soviet regime. Soviet forces quickly moved on the capital, Kabul, executing Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin and installing Babrak Karmal as the new head of state. This incursion, intended to be a swift and decisive intervention, quickly bogged down into a protracted and brutal quagmire.

Soviet forces, wielding superior firepower, found themselves fighting a relentless and resourceful insurgency. The mujahideen, or holy warriors, were a collection of fiercely independent resistance groups. They were not only driven by nationalistic and religious fervor but were also significantly empowered by external patronage. The United States, viewing the conflict as a critical front in the Cold War, channeled billions of dollars in weaponry, including sophisticated Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Support also flowed from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, transforming Afghanistan into a proxy battlefield where the superpowers fought a bloody and indirect war.

After nearly a decade of inconclusive fighting and mounting casualties, the war had become deeply unpopular within the Soviet Union. The conflict, often referred to as the “Soviet Union’s Vietnam,” was a drain on its economy and morale. International pressure, coupled with the Soviet leadership’s desire for an exit under Mikhail Gorbachev, led to the Geneva Accords, signed in May 1988 by Afghanistan, Pakistan, the USSR, and the U.S. These agreements paved the way for a Soviet withdrawal, which was completed on February 15, 1989. The last Soviet soldier to cross back into Soviet territory was the commander of the 40th Army, Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, who walked across the Friendship Bridge (also known as the Hairatan Bridge) linking the two nations, symbolically closing the chapter on the Soviet presence.

The human cost of the war remains staggering. Official figures record the deaths of over 15,000 Soviet servicemen, but the true toll on the Afghan people was far more devastating. An estimated one million Afghan civilians perished, with millions more forced to flee their homes, creating one of the world’s largest refugee populations, primarily in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. The country’s infrastructure and social fabric were left in ruins.

The Soviet departure did not bring peace. The communist government of President Mohammad Najibullah, propped up by continued Soviet aid, managed to hold on for three more years. However, with the final dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the flow of aid ceased, and his government crumbled in 1992. The various mujahideen factions, having united against a common enemy, turned their guns on each other, plunging the country into a devastating and chaotic civil war. It was from the ashes of this internecine conflict that a new and formidable force emerged: the Taliban. Promising to restore order and punish the corrupt warlords, they seized Kabul in 1996 and established a brutal form of Islamic rule.

For the Taliban, who returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, this anniversary holds profound significance. They frame the Soviet withdrawal, along with the later chaotic exit of U.S. and NATO forces, as two historic victories against foreign superpowers, a testament to their narrative of national independence, faith, and unyielding resistance to occupation.

The 37th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal is not merely a historical marker. It is a poignant reminder of Afghanistan’s long and painful experience with foreign intervention. It underscores the immense human cost of war and the bitter irony that the departure of one superpower in 1989 set the stage for decades of internal conflict, ultimately paving the way for the very regime that now governs in Kabul. The legacy of that day in 1989 continues to shape Afghanistan’s ongoing, and still uncertain, struggle for sovereignty, stability, and peace.

 

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