The pictures don’t show the hardships that Rybalchenko and 20,000 Soviet women like her went through after they enlisted as civilian support staff during the Soviet Union’s 1979-1989 invasion of Afghanistan. As Russia on Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the memories are still fresh for the nurses, clerks and shopkeepers, predominantly young and single women who were thrust into the bloody conflict. At least 15,000 Soviet troops were killed in the fighting that began as an effort to prop up a communist ally and soon became a grinding campaign against a US-backed insurgency. One of the wounded was Vshivtsev, and Rybalchenko saw him being wheeled into the ward with bandages wrapped around his head. While the war grew unpopular at home, Soviet troops and support staff in Afghanistan mostly focused on survival rather than politics.

Source: Egypt Independent February 15, 2019 07:30 UTC