Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp

guilty party with all the severity of the law! For we were on the territory of a friendly country and 

any accidental shot or carelessly tossed word could serve as a cause of an international scandal. 

 

 

The longer I heard Yasha the more the conviction grew in me that something was wrong 

here. Rather, everything was wrong. Or I had lost my mind and was inappropriately evaluating 

reality and what Semenov said; or was it HE who was out of sorts? Everything that he had said was 

so divorced from reality that I somehow couldn’t even find the words to comment on this plan. This 

was complete adventurism, elementary ignorance of the situation, and the most complete 

incompetence… 

 

 

Of course this was not something that was Semenov’s idea. Some big boss had drawn up 

the plan. Yasha had already told me then that the high command had put him, the chief of our entire 

group, in a foolish position and in a practically hopeless situation: here’s your plan of operations – 

fulfill it… 

 

 

In principle the opinion of all the “Zenit” troops was the same: the proposed plan was an 

absurdity born of an ignorance of the situation. An obvious dilettante had drawn up the plan. But no 

one then talked openly aloud about this. Everyone understood that this was a decision of some high 

command unknown to us. It was not precluded that our Party advisers here had also had a hand. By 

the way, the bespectacled briefer who was explaining to us about Amin the usurper, judging from his 

manners and smooth speech, completely looked like a representative of the latter [trans. note: the 

Party advisers]… 

 

 

A day later it was explained to us in the morning that we were going to Kabul at night. 

However the standdown was given at noon. The adventurist version of the plan had been scuttled. 

Well, thank God! 

 

 

The snipers from the special KGB subunits did not manage to kill Amin. “Zenit” officers Vladimir Tsvetkov 

and Fedor Yerokhov set the sights of the sniper rifles at Bagram at 450 meters, chose positions along Amin’s usual 

route of travel, set up a watch, and specified withdrawal routes to the Soviet Embassy, but each time, before they 

passed a reinforced guard was set up along the whole route and the vehicles moved at enormous speed and the “Zenit” 

troops could not carry out the mission. 

 

 

Through inertia, for three more days (14-16 December) work continued in Bagram to prepare to seize the 

palace in the center of Kabul with the forces of the special services and the “Muslim” battalion (scouting, working out 

the details of the assault, coordination – down to the smallest details), but this was preparation for operations which 

had been proposed to begin in the event of the success of a new subversive action against Amin. 

 

 

 

However the next attempt against him on 16 December ended in failure. They tried to poison Hafizullah 

Amin but his nephew Asadullah Amin, the chief of the counterintelligence service, drank the Pepsi Cola with the 

“contents”; he was sent to the USSR for treatment with a very serious attack of hepatitis. Soviet doctors saved him but 

after the change of government in Kabul he ended up in Lefortovo Prison where attempts were made to learn from him 

the circumstances of the murder of Taraki and other information. However Asadullah Amin conducted himself 

worthily and firmly at interrogations and said nothing. He was then deported to Afghanistan and executed there by the 

new regime. 

 

 

An An-12 aircraft urgently flew in from Fergana for the members of the future Afghan government headed by 

Babrak Karmal and they again left for the USSR. 

 

 

According to Yuriy Izotov, an officer of Group “A”:  

We had to return to Tashkent again when the operation did not come off; it was not 

cancelled, but postponed. We met there with future members of the CC PDPA Politburo whom 

Valentin Ivanovich Shergin and his guys were guarding. I noted that the Afghans were unhappy 

about the inactivity and I suggested they throw knives. I led them out to the street, set up the boards, 

and began to train. Then I led Anahita to work in the dacha where we had been fishing with her. I 

had to disperse them somewhat to keep dark thoughts from them. But then they seated us in the 

 

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plane which was loaded with kerosene and saxsaul [Translator’s note: a local plant] and we again 

arrived in Bagram. 

 

 

Meanwhile measures continued in the Turkestan Military District to deploy and prepare troops for their 

deployment to Afghanistan. 

 

Getting Ready for the Invasion  

 

 

On 12 December the 108

th

 Motorized Rifle Division was placed on alert and its 180

th

 Motorized Rifle 

Regiment was moved out to cover the border. It was proposed to conduct mobilization deployment and preparations at 

garrison locations but this could not be done. Mobilization was done at training centers. The leadership of Uzbekistan 

and the Surkhandar’inskaya Oblast gave the command of the division much help. 

 

 

The USSR Ministry of Defense Operations Group (OG MO SSSR) headed Akhromeyev was formed on 13 

December. It included generals and officers of the General Staff and also representatives of all branches and troop 

arms of the USSR Armed Forces (VS SSSR), and main and central directorates of the Defense Ministry. At 2200 14 

December the OG MO SSSR was already in Termez, on the Soviet-Afghan border, and began to coordinate operations 

to deploy troops to Afghanistan. However soon afterwards Akhromeyev became ill and command of this group was 

entrusted to First Deputy USSR Defense Minister Marshal Sergey Leonidovich Sokolov, who was recalled from leave 

in this connection. It was Sokolov who had to exercise overall command of Soviet troops during their preparation for 

and deployment to Afghanistan. 

 

 

The OG MO SSSR did a great deal of organizational work at the initial stage of the Afghan campaign. It 

oversaw the regrouping, mobilization, and deployment of troops to Afghanistan and also the implementation of 

measures to remove Amin from power and install the Karmal regime. In succeeding years the largest military 

operations were carried out under his command and also the most complex issues of a military-political nature were 

decided. 

 

 

REFERENCE MATERIAL 

 

USSR Ministry of Defense and General Staff Operations Groups in the DRA

16

 

…During the entire period Soviet troops were in Afghanistan from time to time various 

operations groups [OG] of the Ministry of Defense [MO] and USSR Armed Forces General Staff 

operated there. The first, headed by Deputy Commanding General of the Airborne Forces, General-

Lieutenant N. N. Gus’kov, arrived in Bagram at the beginning of December and rebased to Kabul on 

23 December 1979. From 25 to 27 December it exercised leadership of the transfer from Bagram to 

Kabul of airborne units, their housing, and operations during the overthrow of H. Amin’s supporters. 

 

On 3 January 1980 a USSR OG MO flew into Afghanistan from Termez headed by 

Marshal of the Soviet Union S. L. Sokolov (General of the Army S. F. Akhromeyev became his 

deputy), which was located there until November of that year. Then from time to time this group 

went to the DRA to coordinate the combat operations of Soviet and Afghan troops when conducting 

the largest operations (for example, in Panjshir) for up to six months. 

 

Beginning with the last half of 1984 the leadership of the OG MO of the USSR and DRA 

was entrusted to General of the Army V. I. Varennikov, at that time a First Deputy Chief of the 

General Staff. At the very beginning he periodically visited Afghanistan, but beginning 2 January 

1987 until the conclusion of the withdrawal of Soviet troops he was in Afghanistan permanently. 

The generals and officers of the USSR OG MO systematically worked in units and formations of the 

40

th

 Army to give practical aid to their commanders and staffs in preparing and carrying out combat 

operations, organizing combat training, considering accumulated experience, and also coordinating 

operations and maintaining coordination with the Afghan army. Aid was given to the advisory staff 

                                            

16

 [Translator’s note: Previosuly published in Lyakhovskiy’s “Plamya Afgana’ (“Flame of the Aghanistan veteran”) 

and previously translated] 

 

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