LESSONS OF AN UNDECLARED WAR

On the eve of the fifteenth anniversary of withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan Ukraine’s leaders laid flowers on the memorial to Ukrainians who perished in the Afghan War. The ceremony was attended by President Leonid Kuchma, parliamentary leader Volodymyr Lytvyn, First Vice Premier Mykola Azarov, head of the Ukrainian Union of Afghanistan Veterans cum Chairman of the State Committee on Veterans Serhiy Chervonopisky, heads of ministries and departments, people’s deputies, and Afghan veterans. On the occasion of the anniversary, 35 officers of the Defense Ministry and General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine received the Ministry’s insignia. Veteran of Military Service. Presenting the awards, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk said that the day of withdrawing the Soviet troops from Afghanistan “ended a whole epoch, which will be forever etched in our people’s memory.” In Minister Marchuk’s words, from December 25, 1975 to February 15, 1989, over 160,000 Ukrainians “went through the austere roads of the undeclared Afghan War.” According to Defense Ministry data, every fourth of them was decorated in some way, with twelve becoming Heroes of the Soviet Union. Yevhen Marchuk expressed gratitude to those awarded on behalf of the Ministry Collegium “for their patriotism, bravery, service, and work for the sake of their Motherland.” The meeting commemorated the 3160 Ukrainian soldiers who took part in the Afghan War and never came home with a moment of silence.

“The fact that we ever sent our troops to Afghanistan was a gross political mistake connected with the ideological approach to foreign policy the Soviet Union exercised in those years,” former head of the Soviet State Mikhail Gorbachev told Interfax. “Any attempt to impose an alien model of social order on a country having its own deep-rooted traditions is always doomed to failure.” In Mr. Gorbachev’s words, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from this country was justified and inevitable, while the lesson to be drawn out of what had happened between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in those years is only one. “In today’s world one has to act primarily with political methods, not with force, with respect for national and ethnic traditions and based upon the principles of freedom and democracy,” Mr. Gorbachev said. In his view, such approach is possible and can be effective, but the way to it is very complicated.

The anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was also marked in many of Ukraine’s cities, the more so that a presidential order proclaimed February 15 the Day of Participants of Military Operations Outside Ukraine. Afghan veterans from throughout Ukraine gathered around the memorial to Ukrainians who perished in the Afghan War. It has been a long time since many of them last time saw their brothers in arms. They recalled all their compatriots who gave their lives doing their so-called internationalist duty. Of course, they couldn’t do without the traditional hundred grams of vodka.