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The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan echoes in today’s war

Many of the stories in Svetlana Alexievich’s “Zinky Boys” could have come from Ukraine

A bird sits on a tree next to a monument to Soviet soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan during Soviet invasion of 1979-1989 at Moscow's Poklonnaya Hill War Memorial Park on April 2, 2021. - For the decade a total of 620,000 Soviet soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan. The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces amounted about to 15,000. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images

The conscripts came mostly from the far reaches of Russia. Some were told they were being sent to help with the harvest, only to be thrown into a war zone. They lived in fear of the local population, and of the enemy, whom they called “ghosts”. “We killed wherever we could,” one said. “We killed wherever we wanted.” Their rations and equipment were outdated, often by decades. As she began to suture an elderly woman’s wounds, an army nurse saw the thread between her fingers turn to powder. It had been sitting in a Soviet warehouse since 1945.

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Unquiet ghosts”

Should Europe worry?

From the September 24th 2022 edition

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