During what war did many Russians leave Afghanistan?
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Russians in Afghanistan There are estimated to be 1,500 Russians living in Afghanistan. In the 1960s and 1970s, due to cooperation between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, there were roughly 10,000 Russian expatriate engineers, interpreters, construction workers, and other similar professionals living in the country, a figure which had grown to 15,000 by the eve of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. However, they mostly left the country during or after the war. The remaining continue to leave since the War in Afghanistan. There was some Russian-language media, but it closed down during the period of Taliban government.
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Afghanistan–Russia relations Afghanistan–Russia relations (Russian: Российско-афганские отношения ) refers to the relations between the nations of Afghanistan and Russia. The Great Game is the story of Russian-British confrontations over Afghanistan since 1840.
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2014 Bagram Airfield bombing The attack occurred at approximately 5:15 (UTC) A.M., as the Czech soldiers along with Afghan police, were assessing the security situation in the village in the vicinity of Bagram Airfield. The bomber was in a crowd of Afghans talking to the soldiers who were investigating rocket attacks against Bagram airbase. Two days prior, a rocket was fired at the base from the nearby village of Qalandar Khil. A total of 17+ people died on site; including 10 Afghan civilians, 2 Afghan police officers, and 4 Czech soldiers. A fifth Czech soldier died of wounds six days later in a Prague military hospital.
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Leonid Khabarov Leonid Khabarov (Russian: Леони́д Васи́льевич Хаба́ров ; ] ; born May 8, 1947) is a former Soviet military officer whose battalion was the first Soviet Army unit to cross the border into the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan on December 25, 1979, serving as the "de facto" beginning of the decade-long Soviet war in Afghanistan. He received widespread media attention after he was arrested on charges of fomenting a "coup d'état" while serving as a Russian ROTC chief in 2011. He was accused of having created a master plot to overthrow local authorities in the Ural region of Russia for the purpose of launching a nationwide rebellion.
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Kunduz airlift The Kunduz airlift refers to the evacuation of thousands of top commanders and members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, their Pakistani advisers including Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agents and army personnel, and other Jihadi volunteers and sympathizers, from the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, in November 2001 just before its capture by U.S. and United Front of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance) forces during the War in Afghanistan. As described in several reports, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda combatants were safely evacuated from Kunduz and airlifted by Pakistan Air Force cargo aircraft to Pakistan Air Force bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan-administered Kashmir's Northern Areas.
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Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II The Repatriation of Cossacks happened when Cossacks and ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who had collaborated with Nazi Germany were handed over to the USSR after the Second World War.
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Afghan Turkestan Afghan Turkestan is a region in northern Afghanistan, on the border with the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the 19th century there was a province in Afghanistan named Turkestan Province until abolished by Abdur Rahman, and was centred on Mazari Sharif and included territory in the modern provinces of Balkh, Jowzjan, Faryab and Sar-e Pol. The whole territory, from the junction of the Kokcha river with the Amu Darya on the north-east to the province of Herat on the south-west, was some 500 mi in length, with an average width from the Russian frontier to the Hindu Kush of 114 miles (183 km). It thus comprised about 57,000 sqmi or roughly two-ninths of the former Kingdom of Afghanistan.
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Bombing of Katyr-Yurt The reported bombing of Katyr-Yurt (Chechnya) occurred on February 4, 2000, when Russian forces bombed the village of Katyr-Yurt and a refugee convoy under white flags in an attempt to stop the breakout of the Chechen separatist forces from Grozny, killing or injuring hundreds of people. The village was also previously bombed by the Russians in 1995 and in 1996.
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North Korean defectors Since the division of Korea after World War II and the end of the Korean War (1950–1953), some North Koreans have managed to defect for political, ideological, religious, economic or personal reasons.
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Soviet infrastructure in Central Asia The legacy of the Soviet Union lives on in the infrastructure of Central Asia. As it crumbles, or gets patched up, much of what was built in Central Asia is the backbone of the existing infrastructure for transportation, goods delivery and energy distribution. Much of the industrial infrastructure underwent precipitous decline in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The roads, railroads and energy lines are thus oriented towards the Russian Federation and away from other regional neighbors, such as China, Afghanistan or Iran.
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April 2012 Afghanistan attacks The April 2012 Afghanistan attacks took place on Sunday, 15 April 2012, at around 13:00 local time (08:30 UTC) when heavily armed Taliban insurgents and suicide bombers launched multiple coordinated attacks throughout Afghanistan. Insurgents launched the 2012 spring offensive on multiple locations, including government buildings, military bases, and embassies. Attacks occurred in four Afghan provinces, including Kabul and Paktia. Different reports attribute responsibility for the attacks to either Taliban or the Haqqani network although the Taliban have claimed responsibility.
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Russification Russification or Russianization is a form of cultural assimilation process during which non-Russian communities, voluntarily or not, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian one.
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Mohammed Zaman Hajji Mohammed Zaman ("Zaman Ghamsharik") (29 April 1965 – 22 February 2010) was a Pashtun Afghan military leader and politician. He was an ethnic Pashtun, connected to the Khungani tribe. According to Maj. Dalton Fury, who fought together with Ghamsharik in November/December 2001 in the Tora Bora campaign against the Taliban, Haji Zaman had been "one of the more infamous mujahideen junior commanders during the Soviet-Afg. War. When the Tailban took over, Zaman departed Afg. for France. He visited Alexandria, VA numerous times over the years and was known to favor the bite of fine Johnnie Walker Red scotch. When the Taliban fell from grace after 9/11, the articulate and cunning warlord returned to his homeland to reclaim his former VIP status. He was said to have influential friends w/in neighboring Pakistan, including members of the Pakistan intelligence service." He reportedly led a force of 4,000 men during the campaign to oust Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers.
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Chechenization Chechenization was a policy of the Russian Federation adopted during the Second Chechen War from 2001 onwards whereby pro-Moscow leaders such as Akhmad Kadyrov were elected in Chechnya, in elections organized by Russia that followed a constitutional referendum also organized by Russia, with the intent of this government, rather than Russia, then becoming responsible for fighting separatists.
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War in Afghanistan (1978–present) The War in Afghanistan began on 27 April 1978, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power in a military coup, known as the Saur Revolution. Most of Afghanistan subsequently experienced uprisings against the PDPA government. The Soviet war in Afghanistan began in December 1979 to replace the existing communist government. Afghanistan's resistance forces, known as the mujahideen, fought against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Some factions received support by the United States, with the Pakistani ISI serving as the U.S. middleman, and Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union had to withdraw its troops in February 1989. The Soviet-backed Afghan communist government survived for three more years until the fall of Kabul in 1992.
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Taliban insurgency The Taliban insurgency began shortly after the group's fall from power following the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces are fighting against the Afghan government, formerly led by President Hamid Karzai, now led by President Ashraf Ghani, and against the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The insurgency has spread to some degree over the Durand Line border to neighboring Pakistan, in particular the Waziristan region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban conduct low-intensity warfare against Afghan National Security Forces and their NATO trainers. Regional countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran, are often accused of funding and supporting the insurgent groups.
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Battle of Komsomolskoye The Battle of Komsomolskoye took place in March 2000 between Russian federal forces and Chechen separatists in the Chechen village of Komsomolskoye (Saadi-Kotar), Chechnya. It was the largest Russian victory during the Second Chechen War. Several hundred Chechen rebel fighters and civilians and more than 50 Russian servicemen were killed in the course of more than two weeks of siege warfare. The fighting resulted in the destruction of most of the forces of Chechen rebel field commander Ruslan Gelayev. Scores of Chechens were taken prisoner by the Russians, and only a few survived. A number of civilians died from torture, and the village was looted and completely destroyed.
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International response to the Second Chechen War Russia incurred much international criticism for its conduct during the Second Chechen War, which started in 1999. The governments of the United States and other countries condemned deaths and expulsions among civilians. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) passed two resolutions in 2000 and 2001 condemning human rights violations in Chechnya and requiring Russia to set up an independent national commission of inquiry to investigate the matter. However, a third resolution on these lines failed in 2004. The Council of Europe in multiple resolutions and statements between 2003 and 2007 called on Russia (a member of the Council) to cease human rights violations. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) between 2005 and 2007 conducted legal cases brought by Chechens against the Russian government, and in many of these cases held Russia responsible for deaths, disappearances and torture.
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35th Army (Russia) The 35th Red Banner Army is a field army of the Russian Ground Forces. The army was first formed in July 1941 with the Far Eastern Front. After spending most of World War II guarding the border in Primorsky Krai, the army fought in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, and was disbanded shortly after the end of the war. Reformed at Belogorsk when Sino-Soviet tensions rose in the late 1960s in the Far East, the army became part of the Eastern Military District in 2010.
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Operation Mountain Fury Operation Mountain Fury was a NATO-led operation begun on September 16, 2006 as a follow-up operation to Operation Medusa, to clear Taliban rebels from the eastern provinces of Afghanistan. Another focus of the operation was to enable reconstruction projects such as schools, health-care facilities, and courthouses to take place in the targeted provinces.
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Kornei Andrusenko Andrusenko joined the Red Army in 1918, fighting in the Russian Civil War in Ukraine and the Polish–Soviet War. During the interwar period, he became an infantry officer and studied at the Frunze Military Academy just before the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Andrusenko commanded two different rifle regiments in the Battle of Moscow before taking command of the 329th Rifle Division in December. In March 1942, his division was encircled and destroyed. Andrusenko escaped and was sentenced to death for "inaction", but the sentenced was changed to ten years and delayed until the end of the war. He was demoted to command a cadet rifle brigade, which he led during the Battle of Stalingrad. For an unauthorized retreat, he was again demoted to command of a regiment. For his subsequent leadership of the regiment, Andrusenko was restored in rank and for his actions in the Battle of the Dnieper was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In January 1944, he was given command of the 55th Rifle Division, leading it in Operation Bagration and the Baltic Offensive. In the spring of 1945 Andrusenko took command of the 184th Rifle Division in the Soviet Far East and led it in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August of that year. He retired from the army after the end of the war.
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Afghanistan–India relations Bilateral relations between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Republic of India have traditionally been strong and friendly. Whilst the Republic of India was the only South Asian country to recognise the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the 1980s, its relations were diminished during the 1990s Afghan civil war and the Taliban government. India aided the overthrow of the Taliban and became the largest regional provider of humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Afghanistan. Indians are working in various construction projects, as part of India's rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan alleges the Indian intelligence agency RAW is working in cover to malign Pakistan and train and support insurgents, a claim rejected strongly by India and the United States, the latter historically being a strong ally of Pakistan.