Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp
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- The Seizure of Important Facilities in Kabul
Ivanov again asked, “Was he killed?” Kozlov replied, “Yes, he was killed”. And the General immediately cut off communications. It was necessary to quickly report to Moscow, to KGB Chairman Andropov about completion of the main mission.
According to Golov:
“After we found out that Amin was dead we gathered downstairs; we had to repel a tank attack. But what does it mean to lie on frozen ground on a winter night after a heated battle? It was telling then, of course, since besides a wound I had double pneumonia. Initially I didn’t feel feverish and then, when everything had sort of quieted down, the guys looked at me and said, “Serezha, why are you so pale? Take off your shirt”. I took off my jacket and I saw I was all bloody. They sent me to the barracks of the “Muslim” battalion right away where we had been living before. They bandaged me there and said that I needed to go to [either a civilian or a military] hospital. In the morning Berlev and Shvachko sent me to the hospital at the Embassy. I was operated on there. They removed grenade fragments.”
…After the battle they counted the casualties. Five men in the KGB special forces groups which had assaulted the Palace had been killed, including Col. Boyarinov. Almost everyone was wounded but those who could hold a weapon in their hands continued to fight. Five were also killed in the “Muslim” battalion and 35 wounded. Twenty-three who were wounded remained on duty. The battalion medical officer initially took seriously wounded soldiers out in a BMP to the battalion and then to various medical institutions which were then in Kabul.
I don’t know the fate of the officials of the KGB Ninth Directorate who were directly guarding Amin. According to some information they all managed to evacuate earlier.
and prepared. During the battle I was not aware of the ammunition at all, although there was about 50-60 kg of it hanging on each of us considering the packs, ammunition, bulletproof vests, helmets, etc. But after the battle such a deadly fatigue came over us that we simply fell down in a “dead faint”. And, as I saw it, everyone slept where they had fallen into some shutdown mode [v otklyuchku], like in resuscitation.”
During the night the special forces guarded the Palace since they were afraid that the divisions and the tank brigade stationed in Kabul would try to storm it. But this did not happen. The Soviet military advisers working in Afghan army units and the airborne units which had been airlifted to the capital did not let them do this. Moreover, the special services had paralyzed the command and control of Afghan forces beforehand.
and a KGB special forces group recognize one another from the white armbands on their sleeves, the “Misha-Yasha” password, and…swearing. But since everyone was dressed in Afghan uniforms and shooting they had to throw grenades from quite a distance. Try to follow in the darkness; isn’t there confusion about who has a white armband on his sleeve and who doesn’t? In addition, when they started to lead Afghan prisoners away their sleeves also had white armbands.
Kolomiyets adds: “I would like to put in a good word about the now-deceased Volodya Filimonov. We had orders not to assist the wounded but just [move] ahead. I was already wounded on the second floor and I suspect from a bullet of one of the men of the [KGB] First Main Directorate. They only had 7.62 mm automatic weapons but Amin’s security force had different weapons. Filimonov took me by the leg and dragged me down the stairs. I hurt my head on the steps. I told him: ‘Volodya, take my weapon’. He took the weapon, added a magazine, and delivered it in a safe place.”
Valentin Braterskiy recalls: “There were five of us from the First Main Directorate and two groups of 30 each who were carrying out the operation. “Grom” is a unique group which included rated athletes and was to operate right in the Palace. The “Zenit” group was to secure the approaches to the Palace. It had guys from the Balashikha School which trained the special forces. Of the 60 men, 14 remained on duty. There were high casualties on the other side. There were 300 men in Amin’s security force. One hundred fifty were taken prisoner. The dead were not counted.
64 Amin had also driven in a 2000-man regiment and they were entrenched around the Palace. We cut through the regiment like a dagger. It scattered somehow during the assault. Karmal promised that 500 guerillas loyal to him would support us. They brought in weapons and grenades for them – and waited. Only one of the 500 came. There was one other group under the command of a KGB major. Their mission included delivering several members of the Afghan leadership to confirm the story of a domestic coup. The story which was impressed on us was – Amin was in touch with the Americans; we would get one more dangerous neighbor from the South. There are no documents confirming this story and nothing has been presented. It all seemed finally clear to me that when the man who had shot Amin told me that there was on order: don’t take Amin alive. By the way, Amin’s approximately eight-year-old was wounded in the chest at the same time during the shootout and died. I bandaged the wound of his daughter with my own hands – she was wounded in the leg. We left a Palace in which the rugs were soaked with blood and sloshed our way through. This is hard to imagine… We were all promised the stars of Heroes [of the Soviet Union] before our departing flight. As far as I know, two of us did receive them, one posthumously; everyone in the KGB involved in this affair, 400 people, received awards, even the typists and secretaries. All the men who survived that night agreed that they would meet every year on 27 December at 7 P.M. at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Kryuchkov forbade it – ‘There’s no use whining’…
Commenting on these recollections General Drozdov said: “I very much doubt the correctness of individual statements of V. Braterskiy. He was not in the assault groups. I see nothing in his scathing pronouncements except an ignorance of the facts, carelessness, and incompetence. They didn’t promise us the stars of Heroes, they simply assigned us the performance of an operational assignment. Those who write weren’t there themselves but know everything and more than everyone. Actually, for a good five years the “Afghans” marked this day in spite of the prohibition, but in another place. They did not share this point of view of their leadership. KGB Chairman V. A. Kryuchkov in his conversations with me agreed with them but not everything was in his power.”
On that same day, 27 December, airborne units and subunits of the 103 rd Division and also men from the KGB “Grom” and “Zenit” groups selected to help them went to the locations of military units and formations, and important administrative and special facilities, and established their control over them. The seizure of these key facilities took place in an organized fashion with fewer casualties.
The
General Staff of the Afghan army turned out to be another difficult target whose security force had been considerably strengthened and the situation inside the building itself was quite tense.
different place then. It was simply senseless to carry out an operation with the forces then available and it was postponed.
Rozin, accompanying the adviser for combat training Gen. Vlasov was inside the building where the General Staff had relocated not long before. A museum had been located here earlier. Rozin managed to look over only certain portion of the building. Thanks to the fact that he had previously been a construction specialist, however, saw he compiled a plan of the entire building story by story indicating the locations of the guard posts on the basis of what he saw.
The worked out problems of coordination in detail. This helped very much because there’s no time to ponder in battle. The most difficult one was to break into the building. Yakub displayed special vigilance and was in the General Staff all the time, even spending the night there. They decided to use the presence in Kabul of Soviet paratroopers.
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