New transport and "Uncle Vasya's troops".

Cargo planes have been deployed in Afghanistan since the start of the Soviet invasion in 1979. During the war, the Soviet Air Force lost 11 AN-12s.
In addition to other functions, these aircraft transported the bodies of the dead to their homeland (the so-called "cargo-200"). The first such flight from Bagram to Tashkent in January 1980 was made by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Voitov. By this time, 89 soldiers had already been killed across the southern border of the USSR.
The name "Black Tulip" has no universally recognized origin story. According to one version, it was given in honor of a funeral home from Tashkent. It was here that they made galvanized wooden coffins upholstered in red red cotton for Afghanistan. First, Russian soldiers transferred this name to local morgues, which received "the bodies of the dead personnel," and then to the planes that delivered them.
According to another assumption, the name goes back to the tradition of writing obituaries in Afghan military newspapers - the lists of the dead were usually framed with an ornament of black tulips. This version explains why black tulips began to be painted on the AN-12 fuselage so that the "air corpse vehicles" would not be fired upon by the Mujahideen.
Note that in the jargon of the participants in the Afghan war, the epithet "bellied" was attached to the AN-12, which is associated not only with its purpose, but also with its characteristic form.
Before loading the dead on the plane, they were dressed in old-style military uniforms with breeches. However, as witnesses recalled, sometimes there was not enough clothing for everyone. The loading procedure itself was completed with a gun salvo in memory of the soldiers.
At one time, the "black tulip" took out up to 18 coffins, which, as a rule, were accompanied by colleagues of the victims. The coffins were not initially sealed, since the AN-12 cargo hold was not sealed. The sealing was carried out later, during an intermediate stop in Tashkent. It was fundamentally important for the Soviet command that not a single soldier was left lying between the Afghan stones. The route of each "black tulip" was drawn up with landings at several points in the Soviet Union. In a particular city, the recipient of "cargo-200" was the local military registration and enlistment office, which had already handed over the body to his relatives. In the most difficult days of the conflict, several AN-12s flew to the north at once. In total, 15 thousand dead Soviet soldiers and officers were delivered to their homeland in this way.
Bard Alexander Rosenbaum in 1987 wrote the song "Monologue of the pilot of the" black tulip ", which later sounded in the famous film" Afghan Break ". The reason for its creation was the personal experience of the singer, who once witnessed the loading of the AN-12. The song is often performed at meetings of Afghan veterans.
Currently, "black tulips" are also called monuments to those killed in Afghanistan, installed in the cities of the post-Soviet space, for example, in Yekaterinburg, Petrozavodsk, Norilsk and Khabarovsk.

An-12 cargo ship that crashed at Dwyer airport in the Afghan province of Helmand, with a crew of 9 to 11 people on board, including three Ukrainian citizens, according to the aircraft developer Antonov State Enterprise (Kiev), had an established service life until October 2016, the Antonov State Enterprise reported to Interfax-Ukraine.

"According to the information available in the Antonov State Enterprise, the An-12B aircraft, tail number 4K-AZ25, serial number 3341209, was built at the Tashkent Aviation Production Association (TAPO) named after Chkalov on July 19, 1963. The aircraft had a flight life of up to October 2016 "- clarified in the comments to the agency in the press service of the enterprise.

According to the developer, the last major overhaul of the transport was carried out in June 1991.

An-12 cargo aircraft, according to preliminary data, owned by the Georgian "Anham" and chartered by the Azerbaijani Silk Way, crashed on May 18 during takeoff at Dwyer airport in the Afghan province of Helmand at about 14:30 local time. The data on the composition of the crew on board and the number of deaths at the moment are different.

According to the Ukrainian embassies in Tajikistan and Afghanistan (concurrently), there was a crew of 11 people on board, including three citizens of Ukraine. The disaster killed 9 people, including two citizens of Ukraine. "The crew - 11 people (1 - citizen of Uzbekistan (captain), 3 - citizens of Ukraine, 7 - citizens of Azerbaijan). As a result of the disaster, 9 people died (2 citizens of Ukraine, 1 citizen of Uzbekistan, 6 citizens of Azerbaijan), 1 citizen of Ukraine was hospitalized (the condition is consistently serious) in a hospital in Kandahar, "the Consular Service Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine said on a Facebook page on Thursday.

According to the State Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan, there were nine crew members on board. As a result of the disaster, seven people were killed, among them one citizen of Ukraine, two Ukrainians survived. "According to available information, two citizens of Ukraine survived as a result of the disaster - technicians Andriy Ganzha and Ramzi Aliyev Ramzi, their condition is assessed as consistently satisfactory," the State Aviation Service said.

According to the updated administration, the plane crash killed the crew commander Rashid Shaydanov (citizen of Uzbekistan), second pilot Altai Abdullayev (citizen of Azerbaijan), navigator Nazim Asadullaev (citizen of Azerbaijan), flight mechanic Nadir Rzayev (citizen of Azerbaijan), radio operators Firdousi Shahverdiev (citizen of Azerbaijan) ), flight operators Azer Zulfiev (citizen of Azerbaijan), flight operator, technician Ruslan Zadnipryanets (citizen of Ukraine).

According to the State Aviation Service of Azerbaijan, the crashed An-12 was leased from the Silk Way company to carry out cargo transportation within Afghanistan. "He arrived in Dwyer from Bagran (Afghanistan) and was on his way to Mary (Turkmenistan) for refueling. There was no cargo on board," the message says.

The State Civil Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan has created a commission to investigate this incident. On May 20, the consul of the Ukrainian Embassy in Tajikistan leaves for Kabul to provide consular escorts for a citizen of Ukraine who has suffered as a result of the aviation incident.

An-12 (NATO codification Cub) is a Soviet military transport aircraft with a carrying capacity of up to 20 tons, developed at the end of the 50s. last century in the ASTK them. Antonov (today Antonov State Enterprise, Ukraine).

According to data from open sources, from 1957 to 1973 at facilities in Irkutsk, Voronezh and Tashkent, where the serial assembly of the aircraft was carried out, 1,248 units were produced. An-12. In 1981. in the PRC, serial production of the Chinese version - Shaanxi Y8, and later - the modernized Shaanxi Y9 began.

The main operator of the aircraft is the RF Armed Forces, the Chinese versions of the aircraft were adopted by the PLA. Currently, there are about 150 units in operation. An-12 in Russia, China, post-Soviet countries, Africa.

Today in Ukraine a new transport An-178 with a carrying capacity of up to 18 tons is being created, which will replace the An-12 on the market.

11234 of the 194th Guards. Bryansk Red Banner VTAP named after N.F. Gastello. Fergana, December 1979

In the history of An-12, rich in various events, the Afghan war was destined to know a special place. Afghanistan has become an extensive chapter in the biography of a transport worker, full of combat episodes, hard work and inevitable losses. Almost every participant in the Afghan war, in one way or another, had to deal with military transport aviation and the results of the work of transport workers, arriving at the duty station on their planes, receiving food allowances, property, cartridges and other things needed in the war delivered by air. Soldiers and officers who had served returned home, most of them also by air, only taking out the wounded by plane. Not without the help of the popular bard A. Rosenbaum, it turned out that the An-12 turned out to be known even far from the Afghan war and aviation in particular: even the dead went on their last journey home by air, aboard the "black tulip", in the role of which he played the same transporter.

Preparation of An-12 from the 194th Fergana regiment

An-12BK at the parking lot of the Bagram airfield. Aircraft modified with the installation of cassettes of heat traps

In the broadest way, BTA aircraft began to be involved in work on Afghanistan after the April 1978 revolution in the country. To ensure the urgency of military supplies, the BTA was involved, all the more so since there was a direct government instruction to the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, voiced by the words of A. N. Kosygin: "Give everything now and immediately." The multi-year marathon of transport aviation began, which lasted more than ten years after that without interruption. For the most part, with planned deliveries, equipment, ammunition, etc. were supplied from warehouses and storage bases, often they had to be taken directly from the units, and, if necessary, directly from factories. First of all, the crews of local air transport units located in the territory of the Turkestan Military District were involved in these tasks - the 194th Military Transport Aviation Regiment (VTAP) in Fergana and the 111th Separate Mixed Aviation Regiment (OSAP) in Tashkent at the headquarters of the district, where An The -12 was the most powerful technique. Their airfields were the closest to the "destination", and the cargo delivered to the Afghans was already at the recipient's in a couple of hours.

Directly in Afghanistan, the BTA air group appeared on the initiative of the chief military adviser L.N. Gorelov, who at the end of May 1979 requested an An-12 squadron to provide transportation in the interests of the Afghan army. The aircraft were deployed from the 194th Fergana military-technical aviation company. At the same time, an airborne battalion was sent to guard the squadron in a turbulent situation. To conceal the presence of the Soviet military in the country, the flight and technical personnel were going to be recruited from among the people of the eastern type, natives of the republics of Central Asia, so that they looked like Afghan aviators. With regard to the leadership group, it was possible to observe this only by finding Lieutenant Colonel Mamatov for the position of squadron commander, who was then replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Shamil Khazievich Ishmuratov. Major Rafael Girfanov was appointed his deputy.

A separate military transport squadron, named the 200th separate transport squadron (otae), arrived in Afghanistan on June 14, 1979. It included eight An-12 aircraft with crews of Guards. majors R. Girfanova, O. Kozhevnikova, Yu. Zaikina, Guards. captains A. Bezlepkina, N. Antamonov, N. Bredikhin, V. Goryacheva and N. Kondrushin. The squadron was stationed at Bagram airbase. The entire air group was subordinate to the chief military adviser in the DRA and had the goal of performing tasks at the request of the advisory apparatus in the interests of the Afghan state and military authorities. The planes bore civil designations and symbols of Aeroflot - according to legend, they belonged to the Vnukovo detachment of the Civil Air Fleet,

All assignments came through the Chief Military Adviser, whose staff was increasing, and Soviet officers were already present in almost all units and formations of the Afghan army. Air transport provided a more or less reliable supply of remote areas and garrisons, since by this time, as the Soviet embassy informed, “about 70% of Afghan territory is under the control of detachments and other opposition formations (or outside the control of the government), that is, almost the entire rural area ". Another figure was also named: as a result of the lack of safety on the roads, which "the counter-revolution has chosen as one of its main targets," the average daily export of goods supplied by the Soviet side from border points by the end of 1979 decreased by 10 times.

The transport workers had more than enough tasks: in just one week of work during the aggravation of the situation from 24 to 30 August 1979, 53 An-12 flights were performed - twice as many as the Afghan Il-14s did. On the fly, the An-12 was inferior in these months only to the ubiquitous An-26, the versatility of which made it possible to use them for communications with almost all airfields, while only ten of them were suitable for the heavy An-12 flights.

Sending "cargo 200" to the homeland by the "black tulip" An-12. Kabul airport, winter 1988

Very soon, the base of transport workers in Bagram was involved in the events of big politics. It was she who was used in the beginning of the implementation of the plan for the transfer of individual Soviet units and special groups to Afghanistan, provided in the event of that very "sharp aggravation of the situation." In subsequent events, transport aviation played a role no less important than the well-known actions of paratroopers and special forces. The redeployment of the "Muslim battalion" of the GRU special forces was carried out on November 10-12, 1979, by transferring it from the Chirchik and Tashkent airfields by military aviation aircraft. All heavy equipment, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, were transported to the An-22 from the 12th military transport aviation division; personnel, as well as property and supplies, including living tents, dry rations and even firewood, were delivered to the An-12. With the help of the same An-12, in the following weeks, all the support of the battalion and communication with the command that remained in the Union, which flew to Bagram more than once, was carried out.

In the history of An-12, rich in various events, the Afghan war was destined to take a special place. Afghanistan has become an extensive chapter in the biography of a transport worker, full of combat episodes, hard work and inevitable losses. Almost every participant in the Afghan war, one way or another, had to deal with military transport aviation and the results of the work of transport workers. As a result, the An-12 and the Afghan campaign turned out to be difficult to imagine without each other: the aircraft's participation in the events there began even before the introduction of Soviet troops and, dragging on for more than a decade, continued after the departure of the Soviet Army.

In the broadest way, BTA aircraft began to be involved in work on Afghanistan after the April Revolution that took place in the country, which took place on April 27, 1978 (or on the 7th of the month of Saur in 1357 according to the local lunar calendar - in the country, according to the local chronology, it was the 14th century). The Afghan revolution had its own special character: in the absence of revolutionary strata in a semi-feudal country (according to the Marxist definition, only a proletariat free of private property can belong to these), it had to be carried out by the army, and one of the main characters was the former commander-in-chief of the Air Force Abdul Kadyr, who was removed from office by the former authority of Crown Prince Mohammed Daoud. Having no small personal courage and stubbornness, the officer, who was out of work, headed the secret society of the United Front of the Communists of Afghanistan, however, being a man to the marrow of the military, after the "overthrow of despotism" he transferred all power to the more sophisticated in political affairs local party members from the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan "(PDPA), and he himself preferred to return to his usual business, taking the literally won post of Minister of Defense in the new government. The commander of the Air Force and Air Defense was Colonel Gulyam Sakhi, the former head of the Bagram air base and who contributed a lot to the overthrow of the previous regime, organizing strikes of his aviators on "Stronghold of tyranny" in the capital.

The PDPA figures who came to power in the country, carried away by the ideas of rebuilding society, engaged in radical transformations with the aim of building socialism as soon as possible, which was thought to be achieved in five years. In fact, it turned out that it was easier to carry out a military coup than to rule a country with a heap of economic, national and social problems. Faced with the opposition of the people adhering to traditions, way of life and religious foundations, the plans of the revolutionaries began to take violent forms.

It has been known for a long time that the road to hell was laid out with good intentions: the imposed reforms ran into the rejection of the people, and the directive abolition of many commandments and foundations became for Afghans already a personal intervention, from time immemorial here intolerable. The alienation of the people from power was suppressed by new violent measures: a few months after the Saur revolution, public executions of "reactionaries" and clergy began, repression and purges became widespread, capturing many of yesterday's supporters. When the authorities began to publish lists of those executed in the newspapers in September 1978, the first had 12,000 names, more and more prominent people in society from among the party members, merchants, intellectuals and the military. Already in August 1978, among the other arrested was the Minister of Defense Abdul Kadyr, who was immediately sentenced to death (he was saved from this fate only after repeated appeals of the Soviet government, worried about the overly roaming revolutionary process).

Local discontent quickly escalated into armed uprisings; It could hardly have happened otherwise in a country not spoiled by benefits, where honor was considered the main dignity, devotion to traditions was in the blood and just as traditionally a large part of the population had weapons valued above wealth. Armed clashes and riots in the provinces began already in June 1978, by the winter they had already acquired a systemic character / covering the central regions. However, the government, just as habitually relying on force, tried to suppress them with the help of the army, widely using aircraft and artillery to strike recalcitrant villages. Some deviation from the democratic goals of the revolution was considered all the more insignificant because the resistance of the disaffected was of a focal character, was fragmented and, for the time being, not numerous, and the rebels themselves were seen as pejoratively backward with their grandfather's guns and sabers.

In the winter of 1979, Kandahar airport looked like a peaceful place from which domestic and international aircraft flew. It won't be long before the airport building will be covered with traces of bullets and shrapnel

Entrance to the Kandahar airfield. The local airport bore the title of international and flights to neighboring countries were carried out from it.

The true scale of the resistance and the intensity of events appeared only a few months later. In March 1979, in Herat, the third largest city in the country and the center of a large province of the same name, an anti-government rebellion broke out, to which units of the local military garrison along with commanders joined in the most active way. Only a few hundred people from the 17th Infantry Division remained on the side of the authorities, including 24 Soviet military advisers. They managed to retreat to the Herat airfield and gain a foothold, holding it in their hands. Since all the warehouses and supplies were in the hands of the rebels, it was necessary to supply the remnants of the garrison by air, delivering food, ammunition and reinforcements from the airfields of Kabul and Shindand on transport planes.

At the same time, the danger of the development of the rebellion and its coverage of new provinces was not ruled out; even a rebellious infantry division, numbering up to 5,000 bayonets, was expected to attack Kabul. The local rulers, dumbfounded by what was happening, literally bombarded the Soviet government with requests for urgent assistance, both weapons and troops. Not really trusting their own army, which in fact turned out to be not so reliable and committed to the cause of the revolution, in Kabul they saw a way out only in the urgent involvement of units of the Soviet Army, which would help in suppressing the Herat rebellion and defend the capital. In order for help to arrive as quickly as possible, Soviet soldiers, again, had to be delivered by transport planes.

For the Soviet government, this turn of events had a very definite resonance: on the one hand, an anti-government armed uprising took place at the southernmost borders, less than a hundred kilometers from the border Kushka, on the other, a newly acquired ally, who so loudly declared his commitment to the cause of socialism, signed full of his helplessness, despite the very solid help provided to him. In a telephone conversation with Afghan leader Taraki on March 18, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers A.N. Kosygin, in response to complaints about the lack of weapons, specialists and officers, inquired: “It can be understood that there are no well-trained military personnel in Afghanistan, or very few of them. Hundreds of Afghan officers were trained in the Soviet Union. Where did they all go? "

The entry of Soviet troops was then determined as a completely unacceptable decision, in which both the leadership of the armed forces and the party leadership of the country agreed. L.I. Brezhnev at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee judiciously pointed out: "It is not right for us to get involved in this war." However, the Afghan authorities were assisted by all available measures and methods, first of all, by urgent supplies of weapons and military equipment, as well as by sending advisers up to the highest rank, who were involved not only in training the local military, but also in the direct development of operational plans and leadership in the fight against the opposition (their level and attention to the problem can be judged by the fact that Colonel General I.G. Pavlovsky, Deputy Minister of Defense, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, was personally sent to help the Afghan military leadership on several occasions).

To ensure the urgency of military supplies, the VTA was involved, especially since there was a direct government instruction on this matter, to the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee voiced by the words of A.N. Kosygina: "Give everything now and immediately." The multi-year marathon of transport aviation began, which lasted more than ten years after that without interruption. For the most part, with planned deliveries, equipment, ammunition, etc. were supplied from warehouses and storage bases, often they had to be taken directly from the units, and, if necessary, directly from factories. It turned out that transport aviation played a crucial role not only in supply and supply - its presence was somehow projected on almost all the events of the Afghan company, which makes it appropriate not only to list flights, cargo and destinations, but also to tell about the accompanying political and of a private nature.

The special role of the An-12 in flights in the Afghan direction was dictated by their very predominance in the military aviation formation: by the end of 1979, aircraft of this type accounted for two-thirds of the total aircraft fleet - the An-12 numbered 376 in ten air regiments, while the newest Il-76s were more than twice less - 152, and An-22 - only 57 units. First of all, the crews of local air transport units located in the territory of the Turkestan Military District were involved in these tasks - the 194th Military Transport Aviation Regiment (VTAP) in Fergana and the 111th Separate Mixed Aviation Regiment (OSAP) in Tashkent at the headquarters of the district, where An The -12 was the most powerful technique. Their airfields were the closest to the "destination", and the cargo delivered to the Afghans was already at the recipient in a couple of hours. So, on March 18, An-12 flights were performed from Tashkent to the airfields of Kabul, Wagram and Shindand, in the following days, mainly IL-76 and An-22 operated, carrying heavy equipment and armored vehicles, however, on March 21, four An -12, and from Karshi - another 19 An-12 with cargo.

The problem with Herat with the military assistance provided was eventually resolved by the forces of a battalion of Afghan commandos and tank crews deployed to the city. The city remained in the hands of the rebels for five days, after a series of air strikes, the rebels dispersed and by noon on March 20, Herat was again in the hands of the authorities. However, this did not completely solve the problems - the Herat story was only a "wake-up call" indicating the growth of opposition forces. In the spring and summer of 1979, armed uprisings engulfed the whole of Afghanistan - several days did not pass without reports of the next centers of rebellion, the seizure of villages and cities, uprisings in garrisons and military units and their transition to the side of counter-revolution. Having gained strength, the opposition units cut communications to Khost, blocking the center of the province and the local garrison. Given the general difficult situation on the roads, which were extremely vulnerable to enemy sorties, the only means of supplying the garrisons was aviation, which also guaranteed the promptness of solving supply problems.

However, with an abundance of tasks, the own forces of the Afghan transport aviation were rather modest: by the summer of 1979, the government Air Force had nine An-26 and five piston Il-14 aircraft, as well as eight An-2. There were even fewer trained crews for them - six for the An-26, four for the Il-14 and nine for the An-2. All transport vehicles were assembled in the Kabul 373rd Transport Aviation Regiment (TAP), where there was also one An-30 aerial surveyor; the Afghans somehow got it for aerial photography of the area for cartographic purposes, but it was never used for its original purpose, it was mostly idle and was taken off exclusively for passenger and transport traffic.

Airplanes of civil airlines "Ariana", operating on foreign flights, and "Bakhtar", serving local routes, were also involved in military transportation, however, they did not solve the problems due to the limited fleet and the same not very responsible attitude to business.

On this score, Lieutenant Colonel Valery Petrov, who arrived at the 373rd Tap for the post of adviser to the regiment commander, left colorful remarks in his diary: “Flight training is weak. The personnel are preparing for flights unsatisfactorily. They love only the front side - I'm a pilot! Self-criticism is zero, conceit is great. Flight methodical work should be started from scratch. Unassembled, they say one thing to their eyes, they do another behind their eyes. They are extremely reluctant to work. I estimate the state of the entrusted equipment as two plus. "

With regard to the materiel, the training of equipment, violations of the rules and an openly disregard for the maintenance of machines were chronic. Most of the work was done carelessly, quite often it turned out to be abandoned, unfinished, and all this with complete irresponsibility. The usual thing was the aircraft with malfunctions that were somehow released into flight, the tools and assemblies forgotten here and there, as well as the frequent theft from the boards of batteries and other things necessary in the household, because of which the delivery of cars under guard guard was aimed not so much as protection against sorties of the enemy, how many from thefts by their own. One of the reasons for this was the rapidly developing dependence: with the increasingly large-scale and practically gratuitous supplies of equipment and property from the Soviet Union, one could not care about any kind of frugal attitude to the materiel. Evidence of this was the mass, without regret, written off due to malfunction and abandoned at the slightest damage to cars (in the 373rd tap, four planes in a row were broken in a row by the careless pilot Miradin alone).

The work on equipment, and even the performance of combat missions, was increasingly "entrusted" to Soviet specialists and advisers, whose number in the Armed Forces of Afghanistan had to more than quadruple by mid-1979, to 1000 people.

The issue of transport aviation remained very urgent, since air transportation, together with road transport, were the main means of communication in the country. Afghanistan was a rather vast country, larger than France, and the distances, by local standards, were rather big. As a digression, it can be noted that the conventional opinion that there was no railway transport in Afghanistan is not entirely true: formally there was such a country in the country, however, the entire length of the railway track was a little over five kilometers and it was a continuation of the Central Asian Railway line stretching from the border Kushka to warehouses in Turagundi, which served as a transshipment base for the cargo supplied by the Soviet side (however, there were no "Afghan railroad workers" here either, and the locals were employed only as loaders).

The dominant role in transportation was occupied by vehicles, which were 80% privately owned. With a general shortage of state-owned vehicles, it was common practice to attract owners of "Boerbuhak", whom the state hired to transport goods, including the military, since for a good bakshish they were ready to overcome any mountains and passes and make their way to the most remote points. The supply of military units and garrisons in a private way, as well as the presence of a private transport department under the government, which dealt with government problems, was not entirely familiar to our advisers.

The established procedure for solving transport issues was quite satisfactory in peacetime, but with the aggravation of the situation in the country, it turned out to be very vulnerable. There was no certainty that the cargo would reach its destination and would not be plundered by the dushman troops. Operating on the roads, they obstructed transportation, took away and destroyed sent food, fuel and other supplies, burned the cars of the rebellious, because of which the intimidated drivers refused to take government orders and military supplies. Some garrisons sat for months without supplies, and the starving and exhausted soldiers fled or went over to the enemy and the villages were given to him without a fight. Indicative figures were cited by Soviet advisers at the Afghan military department: with a staffing of the Afghan army of 110 thousand people in the ranks by June 1978, there were only 70 thousand servicemen, and by the end of 1979 their ranks were completely reduced to 40 thousand people, from their staff is 9 thousand people.

With an underdeveloped road network in Afghanistan, the role of air transportation became very significant. There were 35 airfields in the country, even if most of them were not of the best quality, but a dozen and a half of them were quite suitable for flights of transport aircraft. Airfields in Kabul, Bagram, Kandahar and Shindand had very decent solid concrete runways and properly equipped parking areas. Jalalabad and Kunduz had asphalt strips, while at other “points” it was necessary to work from clayey soil and gravel areas. Dispensing with the involvement of special construction and road equipment, the gravel was somehow rolled up with a tank, sometimes fastened with watering of liquid bitumen, and the runway was considered ready to receive aircraft. Somewhat protecting from dust, such a coating melted in the heat and was covered with deep ruts from aircraft taxiing and taking off. The highlands and complex approach patterns, sometimes one-way, with the possibility of approach from a single direction, added to the problems. So, in Faizabad, the approach had to be built along a mountain gully stretching to the airfield, guided by the bend of the river and making a sharp right turn on the descent in order to go around the mountain blocking the strip. It was necessary to land from the first approach - right behind the end of the runway, the next mountain rose, leaving no opportunity to go around with an inaccurate calculation.

The growing need for air transportation was also dictated by the fact that air transport ensured a more or less reliable delivery of goods and people directly to remote points, eliminating the risk of interception by the enemy on the roads. In some places, air transport became practically the only means of supplying the blocked garrisons, cut off by the Dushman cordons. With the expansion of hostilities, the efficiency of solving tasks by transport aviation became invaluable, capable of transferring the required units to the belligerent units without delay, whether it be ammunition, provisions, fuel or replenishment of people - in war, like nowhere else, the saying “the egg is dear to Christ's day” is applicable country sounded more appropriate remark of one of the heroes of the "White Sun of the Desert": "The dagger is good for the one who has it, and woe to the one who does not have it at the right moment").

There were plenty of tasks for the government transport aviation: according to the records of Lieutenant Colonel V. Petrov about the work of the 373th tap, on one day, July 1, 1980, the forces of the regiment, according to the plan, had to deliver 453 people and 46750 kg of cargo to various destinations, taking the wounded and oncoming passengers on flights. One of the flights on the An-30 immediately flew 64 people from local party members and military, who were heading to the capital for the PDPA plenum and packed into the cargo compartment to the eyeballs, even though the plane had no passenger seats at all. The delivery of army cargo and military personnel was interspersed with commercial and passenger transportation, since the local merchants, despite the revolution and the war, had their own interests and knew how to get along with military pilots. The same V. Petrov stated: "Sheer anarchy: whoever wants, he flies, whoever wants, he is taken."

The provincial center of Lashkar Gakh in the south of the country had its own airfield with an unpaved strip, quite decent by local standards.

Valley of the Arghandab River near Kandahar. River channels, with limited other landmarks, served as a very reliable help in solving navigational tasks

In flights over the monotony of mountains stretching for hundreds of kilometers, one had to rely primarily on instruments and other means of instrumental navigation.

Helicopter pilot A. Bondarev, who served in Ghazni, described such transportation “in the interests of the population” in the most picturesque way: “They loved to fly, because buses and cars were regularly robbed by spooks. It's safer to get by air, so a crowd of people who wanted to fly gathered at the airfield barrier. Working with their fists and elbows, using all their cunning, the Afghans burst closer to the plane. Then a soldier from the guard of the airfield gave a turn over their heads. The crowd rolled away, crushing each other. Order was restored. The Afghan pilot recruited passengers and led them to land, having previously checked things for ammunition, weapons and other prohibited items. What he found - he confiscated, the weapons that many had were supposed to be handed over and they were folded in the cockpit. The most annoying and those who strove not to pay were deprived of the right to fly, and those, having received a kick, were removed from the airfield. Others pushed aboard like mad. I saw this only in the movies about the twenties, how people storm the train: they climb over the heads, push and beat each other, push out of the cab. They took as many passengers as they liked. If there was too much stuffed, then the pilots brought the number to the norm by eye, throwing out the extra along with their huge suitcases. There is a special conversation about suitcases, they must be seen. Afghan suitcases are made of galvanized iron and have padlocks. And the dimensions are such that the Afghan himself can live in it or use it as a barn "

Lieutenant General I. Vertelko, who arrived in Afghanistan on the affairs of the Border Troops Directorate, where he was deputy chief, once had to use a passing Afghan An-26 to get from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif. The general described the flight very vividly: “As soon as I boarded the plane, the hatch slammed shut behind my back and I felt like a small insect in the belly of a shark. By the characteristic "aromas" and the slippery floor, I realized that before me, animals were transported here. When the plane was on course, the cockpit door opened, a young Afghan pilot appeared on the threshold and began to say something, waving his arms. It seemed to me that the Afghan demanded a "magarich" for the service rendered. Putting my hand into the inner pocket of my jacket, I took out a couple of new, crisp, still keeping the smell of paint "ducats". My "reds" disappeared in the hands of the Afghan, as if by magic, and he, putting his hands to his chest in a gesture of thanks, uttered a single word: "Bakshish?" "No," I say, "a souvenir." Although he probably had one devil, what bakshish, what a souvenir, the main thing is money in his pocket. As soon as the door was closed behind this "gobsek", another pilot appeared on the threshold. Having received "his" two ducats, he in broken Russian invited me to go into the cockpit, crossing the threshold of which I found myself under the gun of five pairs of brown attentive eyes. In order to somehow defuse the prolonged pause, I open my little travel case and start handing the contents of the left pilot (the right one holds the steering wheel) into the hands of the left pilot: several cans of canned food, a stick of cervelat, a bottle of Stolichnaya. I scooped out all the cash out of my wallet. A coincidence, but those who were not gifted earlier also got two ducats. The pilots cheered up, started talking at once, confusing Russian and Afghan words. It turned out that those who speak Russian well have graduated from college in the Union. "

A pertinent question is why the Afghan transport aviation, with such a demand for transportation, was limited to the operation of light aircraft and did not use the An-12 - machines common and popular not only in the Soviet Union, but also in a dozen other countries? For the time being, there was no particular need for aircraft of this type, and local conditions did not facilitate the use of a sufficiently large four-engine machine. The main nomenclature of cargo for air transportation with the everyday support of the army did not require an aircraft of large carrying capacity: the most overall and heavy engines were aircraft engines, which were units weighing up to 1.5 - 2 tons, other needs were also limited to a level not exceeding 2 - 3 tons. C The An-26 coped with such tasks quite well (just like the Gazelle is the most demanded truck in our city). In addition, the twin-engine car was extremely unpretentious to the conditions of local airfields, due to its low weight and having the capabilities of a short takeoff and landing which was especially noticeable when working in the highlands and from short strips (the 20-ton take-off weight of the An-26 is still not 50 tonnes for the An-12!). Thanks to these advantages, the An-26 could fly from almost all the local airfields, which were not suitable for heavier aircraft.

The An-12 was also unprofitable in terms of range, here it was excessive, since most of the flights were carried out on a "short leg". Afghanistan, with all the complexity of the local conditions and the inaccessibility of many regions, was a "compact" country, where the remoteness of most settlements was a concept rather related to location rather than distance, which is why the inhabitants of many villages lying in the mountains near Kabul itself did not have there have never been any communications with the city or the capital. Located in the east of the country, Jalalabad was only a hundred kilometers from Kabul, and the farthest routes were measured by distances of 450 - 550 km, covered by an airplane per hour of flight. When tanks were needed to suppress the Herat rebellion, it took a little more than a day for a tank unit to march from Kandahar, lying on the other side of the country. In such conditions, the An-12, capable of delivering a ten-ton cargo over three thousand kilometers, would constantly have to be driven half-empty, and for the Afghans it seemed to be the most suitable vehicle.

The situation began to change after the April events. The deeper the government and the army got involved in the fight against the opposition, trying to extinguish the multiplying armed uprisings, the more forces and means were required for this. The suppression of riots, the organization of the struggle against the dushman detachments, the purge of the provinces and the supply of the provincial centers and garrisons needed the means of support and delivery. Meanwhile, it was precisely these tasks, by definition, that the military transport aviation responded, the main purpose of which, among other things, was the transportation of troops, weapons, ammunition and materiel by air, ensuring the maneuver of units and formations, as well as the evacuation of the wounded and sick. In a specific Afghan situation, the range of tasks of transport workers was also significantly expanded by the need to deliver national economic goods, since a small number of civil aviation was mainly engaged in passenger transportation.

Faced with problems, the Afghan authorities literally flooded the Soviet side with calls for help. Kabul's needs were plentiful and plentiful, from food and fuel support to the ever-increasing supply of weapons and ammunition that were the true essentials of the revolutionary process.

With enviable persistence, the Afghan authorities demanded the sending of Soviet troops to fight the rebels, but for the time being they were denied this. There were about 20 such requests addressed to the Soviet government, but both statesmen and the military demonstrated sanity, pointing out the unreasonableness of getting involved in someone else's turmoil. Explaining the inexpediency of such a decision, the politicians listed all the harmful consequences, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense pointed to "the absence of grounds for the introduction of troops," Chief of the General Staff N.V. Ogarkov spoke out in a straightforward military manner: “We will never send our troops there. We will not establish order there with bombs and shells ”. But after a few months the situation will radically and irreparably change ...

So far, 1,500 trucks have been allocated urgently to meet the urgent transportation needs of the Afghan allies; The corresponding instructions were given to the USSR State Planning Committee and Vneshtorg at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee on May 24, 1979, together with a decision on gratuitous supplies of "special equipment" - weapons and ammunition, which would be enough to equip an entire army. However, the Afghans' request to "send helicopters and transport aircraft with Soviet crews to the DRA" was again refused. As it turned out, not for long: the complicating situation in the country spurred the Kabul rulers, who insisted on a direct threat to the "cause of the April revolution" and openly speculated that "the Soviet Union could lose Afghanistan" (it is clear that in this case Afghanistan would immediately be in the clutches imperialists and their mercenaries). Under such pressure, the position of the Soviet government began to change. In view of the obvious weakness of the Afghan army, the case was inclined to believe that the supply of weapons and supplies alone would not be enough. The reason was the events around the blocked Host, for the supply of which at the end of May 1979 the chief military adviser L.N. Gorelov requested support from the forces of the Soviet VTA, temporarily transferring the An-12 squadron to Afghanistan.

As soon as the voice of the representative of the Ministry of Defense joined the requests of the Afghans, they decided to satisfy the request. At the same time, it was decided to send an airborne battalion to guard the squadron in a turbulent situation.

Since the Afghans also experienced an acute shortage of helicopters and, especially, trained crews for them, it was decided to send a transport helicopter squadron to Kabul's disposal. The agreement to satisfy the requests of the Afghan allies had an obvious concession character: the insistence of Kabul did not go unanswered, at the same time the Soviet side “saved face”, distancing itself from getting involved in Afghan civil strife and participating directly in hostilities; the transports sent are still not combat aircraft, and the landing battalion was assigned exclusively security missions (besides, the fighters had to be permanently on the territory of the base).

The execution of the government order was delayed for two whole months for reasons of a completely subjective nature. The equipment was immediately at hand: planes and helicopters were provided from the aviation units located on the territory of the Turkestan Military District, the An-12 - from the Fergana 194 military commander, and the Mi-8 - from the 280th separate helicopter regiment stationed in Kagan near Bukhara ... These units were located near the border and the equipment, together with the crews, could be at their destination literally on the same day. Difficulties arose with the personnel: since it was necessary to keep secret the appearance in Afghanistan of Soviet military units, even if of a limited composition, in order to avoid international complications and accusations of intervention (the highly experienced A.N. Kosygin noted on this score “We will have huge disadvantages, a whole a bunch of countries will immediately oppose us, but there are no advantages for us here ”). For these reasons, the planes had to look like civilians, and transport-combat helicopters, with their protective "military" coloring, had to be equipped with Afghan identification marks. It was decided to use the flight and technical personnel from among the people of the eastern type, natives of the republics of Central Asia, so that they looked like Afghan aviators, since those flight technical uniforms were completely Soviet-style and our "clothes" looked completely their own. This venture was also proposed by the Afghans themselves - the leader of the country, Taraki, asked "to send Uzbeks, Tajiks in civilian clothes and no one will recognize them, since all these peoples exist in Afghanistan."

Such precautions might seem like excessive reinsurance - not so long ago, during the Czechoslovak events, an entire army was sent to the “fraternal country”, not caring much about the impression made in the world. However, much has changed since then, the Soviet Union was proud of its achievements in the field of detente and importance in international affairs, claiming the role of the leader of progressive forces, and the Third World countries gained a certain weight in the world and their opinion had to be reckoned with.

True, with the personnel of the aviation professions, things were completely unsatisfactory. There were literally a few of them. The pilots were collected through DOSAAF, and already in March 1979, a special set of accelerated training for immigrants from Tajikistan was arranged at the Syzran flight school. They also held an organizational recruitment in the local civil aviation departments, Dushanbe, Tashkent and others, attracting those who wish with an unprecedentedly high salary per thousand rubles and a promotion to the position of crew commanders after returning to the Civil Air Fleet.

This picture, unfortunately, is not of the best quality, the ambulance An-26, who arrived in Bagram for the wounded, is captured. The aircraft carries the Red Cross emblem on a white field for better visibility

As a result of these measures, in the 280th helicopter regiment, it was possible to form a non-standard 5th squadron, also nicknamed "Tajik". It was still not possible to fully equip it with "national" crews, six pilots remained "white", from the Slavs, like the squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Bukharin, for whose position not a single Turkmen or Tajik could be found. The squadron's navigator was Senior Lieutenant Zafar Urazov, who had previously flown on Tu-1 6. A good half of the personnel had nothing to do with aviation, being recruited from tankmen, signalmen and sappers for retraining, there was even a former submariner sporting a black navy uniform.

In the end, due to delays in the preparation of the "national" group, the regular third squadron of the regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel AA Belov left for Afghanistan instead. The helicopter squadron, numbering 12 Mi-8s, arrived at the deployment site in Bagram on August 21, 1979. For its transfer, together with the technical staff and numerous aviation and technical equipment, it was necessary to perform 24 An-12 flights and 4 - Il-76 flights.

There were no such problems with the military transport squadron - the An-12s with their "Aeroflot" markings looked quite decent and left for the place of business trip before the others. The transport workers of the 194th VTAP even managed to comply with the "national qualification", finding Lieutenant Colonel Mamatov for the position of squadron commander, who was then replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Shamil Khazievich Ishmuratov. Major Rafael Girfanov was appointed his deputy. A separate military transport squadron, named the 200th separate transport squadron (otae), arrived in Afghanistan on June 14, 1979. It included eight An-12 aircraft with crews of Guards. majors R. Girfanova, O. Kozhevnikova, Yu. Zaikina, Guards. captains A. Bezlepkina, N. Antamonov, N. Bredikhin, V. Goryacheva and N. Kondrushin. The entire air group was subordinate to the chief military adviser in the DRA and had the goal of performing tasks at the request of the advisory apparatus in the interests of the Afghan state and military authorities.

This is how one of its participants, V. Goryachev, who was the captain and commander of the An-12 crew at that time, described that trip: “On June 14, our group (according to legend, it was a GVF detachment from Vnukovo airport) flew to Afghanistan, to the Bagram airfield ... The group selected aircraft with civil registration numbers (most of the aircraft in the regiment had just such numbers). The guns were removed from these machines. All of them were equipped with underground tanks. From here, from the Bagram airfield, we carried out the transportation of personnel, weapons and other goods in the interests of the Afghan army. In the summer we flew mainly to the surrounded Khost (2 times a week). Usually soldiers were transported (both there and back), ammunition, flour, sugar, etc.

products. These flights were very important for the Khost blocked by the rebels. This is evidenced by the fact that the An-12 is designed for a maximum of 90 paratroopers. In reality, then there were sometimes up to 150 Afghans on the planes. And they often had to fly while standing. And, nevertheless, the commander of the garrison Khost was very grateful for such flights. The possibility of changing personnel favorably influenced both the physical condition and the morale of his subordinates.

It was assumed that the stay of the crews of the "Ishmuratov group" in Afghanistan would last three months. But then the duration of our business trip was increased to six months. And then the introduction of troops began and for some time there was no point in changing us, and there was no possibility. I often had to fly to Mazar-i-Sharif, where ammunition was delivered from Hairaton by trucks. We then transported them throughout Afghanistan. We also flew to Kabul, Shindand, and Kandahar. Less often I had to visit Herat, and even less often - in Kunduz. The detachment did not suffer losses on both missions. "

The deployment of transport workers at the Bagram military base instead of the capital's airfield had its own reasons. First of all, all the same goals were pursued to disguise the presence of the Soviet military, who arrived in a fairly large composition - two squadrons and a battalion of paratroopers from the Fergana 345th separate paratrooper regiment for their protection numbered about a thousand people, whose appearance at the Kabul international airport would inevitably attract attention and caused unwanted publicity. “Behind the fence” of the air force base, they were away from prying eyes, not to mention foreign observers and ubiquitous journalists (more than 2,000 Western reporters were working in Kabul at that time, not without reason suspected of intelligence activities). It seems that they really didn’t know about the appearance of Soviet aviators and paratroopers in Afghanistan, since neither the press nor Western analysts noted their presence all these months.

There were other considerations: in early August, the Kabul zone became a turbulent place - armed uprisings of the army took place in the capital's garrison, and nearby in Paktika the opposition grew so strong that it defeated the government units stationed there; talked and "about the upcoming march of the rebels to Kabul. The Soviet ambassador AM Puzanov these days even reported" the emerging danger of the seizure of the airfield near Kabul. "The well-defended military base Bagram with a large garrison in this regard seemed to be a more reliable place. for the aircraft of the military transport squadron, its own individual parking was equipped, located in the very center of the airfield, in the immediate vicinity of the runway.

View of the Wagram airbase taken from a reconnaissance aircraft. In the very center of the airfield, a separate parking lot for transport workers is clearly visible

As a result, it so happened that the first from the composition of the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan were precisely the transport workers and the paratroopers who arrived to guard them. Although the patriotic domestic press has long been speculating about the illegality of comparing the Afghan campaign with the Vietnam war, drawing on numerous arguments that the fulfillment of an international duty had nothing to do with the aggressive policy of imperialism, certain parallels in their history, as they say, suggest themselves.

Even a few years before sending the army to Vietnam, the Americans were faced with the need to support their military advisers and special forces with helicopter units and transport aircraft necessary to support their activities, perform supply and other tasks. The inexorable logic of the war with the expansion of the scale of the conflict soon demanded the involvement of strike aircraft, and then strategic bombers.

In Afghanistan, events developed even more dynamically, and along with the introduction of Soviet troops, in a few months, front-line aviation was involved with the involvement of all its types, from fighters and reconnaissance aircraft to strike forces of fighter-bombers and front-line bombers, immediately involved in combat work.

The transport squadron was recruited literally from the first days. All assignments came through the Chief Military Adviser, whose staff was increasing, and Soviet officers were already present in almost all units and formations of the Afghan army. Air transport provided a more or less reliable supply of remote areas and garrisons, since by this time, as the Soviet embassy informed, “about 70% of Afghan territory is under the control of detachments and other formations of the opposition (or outside the control of the government), that is, almost the entire rural area ". Another figure was also named: as a result of the lack of safety on the roads, which "the counter-revolution has chosen as one of its main targets," the average daily export of goods supplied by the Soviet side from border points by the end of 1979 decreased by 10 times.

The transport workers had more than enough tasks: in just one week of work during the aggravation of the situation from 24 to 30 August 1979, 53 An-12 flights were performed - twice as many as the Afghan Il-14s did. On the fly, the An-12 were inferior in these months only to the ubiquitous An-26, the versatility of which made it possible to use them for communications with almost all airfields, while only ten of them were suitable for heavy An-1 2 flights.

Another tendency was also gaining strength - the desire of the Afghans to shift the solution of tasks to a stronger partner who appeared in time, which was confirmed by the continual and multiplying requests for the dispatch of Soviet troops or at least militia formations that would take on the burden of fighting the opposition. The same character traits were noted when working with the Afghan military on the part of Soviet instructors, who paid attention to such features of the behavior of the local contingent (such “portraits” were compiled on the recommendation of military aviation medicine to optimize relations with the national personnel): “Non-executive, attitude to service decreases when faced with difficulties. In difficult situations, they are passive and constrained, fussy, the logic of thinking worsens, they are dependent and seek help. To elders and those on whom they depend, they can be compliant and offer gifts. They like to emphasize their position, but they are not self-critical and not independent. Are prone to speculation in things. " It is easy to see that this characteristic, which referred to trained military personnel, fully described the activities of the "leadership group" that came to power in the country.

Meanwhile, "revolutionary Afghanistan" more and more turned into an ordinary despotism. The reprisals against the disaffected and yesterday's associates, the growing number of refugees to neighboring Iran and Pakistan, and the incessant riots in the provinces have become commonplace. Injustice and repression led to riots of the Pashtun tribes, a militant and independent nation, whose natives were traditionally the main state apparatus and the army, and now for many years they became the mainstay of armed resistance, the mass of which I add also the fact that the Pashtuns constituted the majority of the country's population (in those Pashtuns never paid taxes, retained the rights to own weapons, and a good third of men were constantly in tribal armed formations). In response, the authorities resorted to bombing recalcitrant villages and punitive actions by troops in the previously independent Pashtun territories.

The "revolutionary process" in Afghanistan went on under its own power (readers probably remember the song "The revolution has a beginning, the revolution has no end", which was then popular on our radio). As a result of the aggravation of discord between recent comrades-in-arms, in October 1979, the recent leader of the revolution, Nur Muhammad Taraki. The PDPA General Secretary, who considered himself a world-scale figure, no less than Lenin or at least Mao Tse-tung, was not saved by merits and conceit - yesterday's associates strangled him with pillows, not sparing the family thrown into prison.

The Boeing 727, bought in the United States for Afghan leader Amin, played an unseemly role in the fate of the president, giving the Soviet leadership a reason to suspect him of flirting with the Americans

After the change of power, the presidential Boeing 727 served in the Afghan airline "Ariana", operating on foreign routes

The day before, the "Muslim battalion" of Major Khalboyev was going to be transferred to Kabul to guard Taraki. The commandos were already sitting in the planes when the command to resign was received. The authorities still hoped to settle the Afghan crisis with local means, relying on the "healthy forces" in the PDPA. However, just a couple of days later, Taraki was stripped of all posts, accused of all mortal sins and imprisoned at the suggestion of his closest party comrade - the head of government and minister of war Amin. The paratroopers were again tasked with flying out to rescue the head of a friendly country, but Amin prudently ordered from September 15 to completely close the Kabul airfield. In response to an appeal to the chief of the Afghan General Staff, General Yakub, about accepting a special board with a landing group, he replied that Amin had given the command to shoot down any aircraft that arrived without his consent.

Having taken power into his own hands, Hafizullah Amin, a cruel and cunning figure, continued to praise Soviet-Afghan friendship and, not really trusting his own entourage, again expressed his wishes to send units of the Soviet Army to Afghanistan (as subsequent events showed, he succeeded in this - on your own head ...). Insisting on the dispatch of Soviet troops, it was increasingly argued that the disorder in the country was inspired by foreign intervention by reactionary forces. Thus, the conflict acquired an ideological connotation, and the concession in it looked like a loss to the West, all the more unforgivable since it was about the loss of a friendly country from the immediate environment of the USSR, with the frightening prospect of the ubiquitous Americans with their troops, missiles and military bases appearing there. Such a picture fully fit into the dominant scheme of the confrontation between socialism and aggressive imperialism, whose expansion across the globe was a popular topic of Russian propaganda, political posters and cartoons.

Amin's contacts with the Americans poured fuel on the fire. Even Amin's sudden refusal to use his own Soviet-made aircraft, in exchange for which the United States bought a Boeing-727 with a hired American crew, was considered evidence of this. The very appearance of American pilots and a technical group at the capital's airfield caused alarm - there was no doubt that secret service agents were hiding under their guise. Amin hastened to explain that this plane was received on account of previously frozen deposits in American banks, this is a temporary matter, Boeing will soon be leased to India, and the Afghan leadership, as before, will use Soviet planes. One way or another, but suspicions about Amin intensified and the decisions made on his account directly affected both himself and the activities of the Soviet transport squadron.

Changes in the top of Afghanistan soon affected the attitude towards the Afghan problem. In the position of the Soviet leadership, the recent almost unanimous reluctance to get involved in the feuds there was replaced by the need to take forceful action, assisting the "people's power" and getting rid of odious figures in Kabul. People from Leonid Brezhnev's entourage pointed out that Taraki's death made a painful impression on the sensitive general secretary. Upon learning of the reprisal against Taraki, whom he favored, Brezhnev was extremely upset, demanding drastic measures against Amin, who was leading him by the nose. Over the next couple of months, the entire military machine was activated and a plan of measures was prepared to resolve the Afghan issue.

The transport base in Bagram was unexpectedly involved in the events of big politics. It was she who was used in the beginning of the implementation of the plan for the transfer of individual Soviet units and special groups to Afghanistan, provided for in the event of that very "sharp aggravation of the situation."

Formally, they were sent in agreement with the requests of the Afghans themselves, with the aim of strengthening the protection of especially important objects, including the airbase itself, the Soviet embassy and the residence of the head of state, others arrived without much publicity and with tasks of a less obvious nature.

It was the base of the transport workers that became the location of the spetsnaz detachment, which was to play a dominant role in the events that soon followed (by the way, Amin himself also managed to propose that the Soviet side "could have military garrisons in those places in which she herself wishes"). transport aviation played a role no less important than the well-known actions of paratroopers and special forces. The redeployment of the "Muslim battalion" of the GRU special forces under the command of Major Khabib Khalbaev was carried out on November 10-12, 1979, by transferring it from the Chirchik and Tashkent airfields by VTA aircraft. All heavy equipment, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, were transported to the An-22 from the 12th military transport aviation division; personnel, as well as property and means of support, including living tents, dry rations and even firewood, were delivered to the An-12. All officers and soldiers were dressed in Afghan uniforms and did not look different from the Afghan military. Uniformity was violated only by the commander of the company of anti-aircraft "Shilok" captain Pautov, a Ukrainian by nationality, however, he was dark-haired and, as Colonel V. Kolesnik, who was in charge of the operation, noted with satisfaction, "he was lost in the general mass when he was silent." With the help of the same An-12, in the following weeks, all the support of the battalion and communication with the command that remained in the Union, which flew to Bagram more than once, was carried out.

Having settled on the spot, the battalion started training in anticipation of the command to perform the "main task", for the time being not specified. Two more units were transferred to Bagram on December 3 and 14, 1979. Together with them, on December 14, Babrak Karmal and several other future leaders of the country arrived in Afghanistan illegally. Karmal, who was to become the new head of the country, was brought aboard the An-12 and secretly placed at the Bagram airbase under the protection of the Soviet military. The newly minted Afghan leader promised to attract at least 500 of his supporters to help the special forces, for which transport aircraft to the base organized the delivery of weapons and ammunition. Only one came at his call ...

The given historical excursion into the prelude to the Afghan war seems all the more justified since in all these events the transport aviation, which played the leading roles, was directly involved. With the decision to carry out a special operation, Colonel V. Kolesnik, responsible for it, took off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow on the morning of December 18. The route flew through Baku and Termez; border Termez, instead of the usual transshipment airfield in Tashkent, where the headquarters of TurkVO was located, appeared on the route due to the fact that an operational group of the USSR Ministry of Defense had settled in this city since December 14, formed to coordinate all actions to bring troops into Afghanistan and headed by the First Deputy Chief General Staff General of the Army S.F. Akhromeev.

During the flight, there were problems in the equipment, because of which they had to look for another plane and the last part of the way to overcome already on the local An-12, which arrived in Bagram late in the evening. Two days before this, by order of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, the field administration of the 40th Army formed to enter Afghanistan was formed and put on full alert. It was based on the formations and units deployed in the Turkestan and Central Asian military districts, mostly skimmed, i.e. possessed standard weapons and equipment, but minimally staffed (in fact, it was a peacetime logistical reserve, if necessary, supplemented to its regular strength by conscripting reserve soldiers and officers). Naturally, the units and formations that became part of the army had a local "residence permit" from TurkVO and SAVO, and personnel for their deployment were recruited from among the local residents through the draft envisaged by the mobilization plans through the military enlistment offices. For this purpose, more than 50 thousand soldiers and officers were called up from the reserve.

This option was directly envisaged by mobilization plans in case of wartime or exacerbation of the situation, making it possible to quickly deploy military formations. According to the plan, immediately after the call for the necessary military specialties liable for military service and their arrival at the nearby assigned units, it was enough to get uniforms, weapons and take places on the equipment in order to almost immediately be ready to perform the assigned tasks.

Over time, the version that the soldiers of predominantly Central Asian nationalities were called upon to conceal the fact of the introduction of troops, "masking" the appearance of an entire army in a neighboring country, was circulated. For example, American author Mark Urban's book The War in Afghanistan, considered a classic in the West on the topic, states: "The Soviets were confident that the local conscription would keep the preparation for hostilities a secret." The insight brings Western and domestic analysts: it is enough to note that the soldiers and officers, even of the "eastern draft", were dressed in Soviet military uniforms, which left no doubt about their belonging, not to mention the TASS statement that followed a few days later on " assistance to Afghanistan ”, however, with the excuseful clause“ on repeated requests of the DRA government ”. The formation of an army formation on the basis of units and formations of local military districts was the most reasonable and, obviously, the fastest and "economical" way to create an "expeditionary corps" of Soviet troops.

In total, in the period from December 15 to December 31, 1979, in accordance with the directives of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, 55 formations, units and institutions that were included in the standard set of the 40 Army were mobilized and brought to full combat readiness. Bringing the troops to full combat readiness had to be carried out in the shortest possible time, dictated, according to the instructions of the General Staff, "by the heating up of the military-political situation and a sharp struggle for the initiative." At the time of the mobilization, the "first echelon" were units of constant readiness, carrying combat duty: border guards, command and control bodies, communications, airborne forces and air forces, as well as all types of support. Inevitably, a responsible role was assigned to the VTA, whose tasks included the provision and transfer of troops.

The decision to send troops to Afghanistan was brought to the attention of the leadership by the Minister of Defense at a meeting on December 24, 1979.

To be continued

Mikhail NIKOLSKY