![]() Soviet state television coverage of the final day shows popular crooner Iosif Kobzon in the Afghan border town of Hairatan to entertain troops. The pullout was once viewed as a moment of national humiliation, but Russian veterans say it now looks more impressive and orderly in comparison with America's hurried exit. Take the final days of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989. withdrawal have played into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin's wider efforts to rehabilitate aspects of Soviet history. Moreover, perceptions of missteps in the U.S. "If you pull out an army of tens of thousands, you need a year."Īs the United States grapples with the fallout from its exit from Afghanistan, former soldiers who fought as part of the USSR's own losing military campaign see echoes in their experiences - similar searing loss - but also evidence of American miscalculation that casts the Soviet experience in a more flattering light. "It's just a fact that if you want to evacuate a division, you need a week," says Opalev, who was among the last Soviet soldiers to withdraw from Afghanistan. Opalev served as a captain in the Soviet army as it was gradually humbled by Afghan mujahedeen fighters during a decade of war in the 1980s. It's not the defeat that confounds him - he understands that part all too well. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Sergei Opalev is still trying to wrap his head around the chaotic end to America's 20-year war. MOSCOW - It has been more than a month since the U.S. Among the first deployed was Rustam Khodzhayev, seen posing here (front row, first from the left) with his special operations unit in 1981. Listen Over half a million Soviet troops served in Afghanistan between 19. ![]()
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