Russia marks 30 years since Afghan war pullout

MOSCOW: Hundreds of veterans of Moscow’s intervention in Afghanistan on Friday marked 30 years since the pullout of Soviet troops from the bloody conflict that remains an uncomfortable national memory.

Marching with a brass band and dressed in olive-green fatigues, veterans of the decade-long war carried portraits of fallen comrades and a banner with the sign "We have carried out the orders of the Motherland".

The Soviet Union intervened in 1979 to bolster Kabul’s embattled Communist government against Islamist fighters, and lost more than 14,000 troops in a conflict that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet empire.

"People shy away from this war. As if it is only our war, while ordinary people are not interested in it," said Andrei Gusev, who served in Afghanistan between 1984-86. Some efforts to vindicate the war have been made under President Vladimir Putin in recent years, consistent with a militarisation of Moscow’s foreign policy in the Middle East and a growing rift with the West.

A poll published on Friday by WCIOM agency said that 42 percent of Russians believe the intervention in Afghanistan was wrong, while 31 percent believed it was necessary. Young people born long after the war were more likely to support the intervention, however, according to poll figures.