Ayaz Gul VOA News May 15, 2019 ISLAMABAD — The Taliban captured a district center Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 13 government soldiers. The fighting comes as Russia asserted the Taliban is getting stronger and called for increased efforts to reach a negotiated settlement to the 17-year-old war. Local officials and insurgent sources reported
This year, Russia marks 30 years since Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. The nine-year long military campaign that claimed the lives of nearly 15 thousand Soviet servicemen even today is the subject of a heated debate in Russian society. The upcoming release on May 10th of Russian director Pavel Lungin’s Leaving Afghanistan, a film on
By Ray Furlong RFE/RL’s Russian Service May 1, 2019 Mohammad Nasser was 10-years-old when he was brought from Afghanistan to the Soviet Union under a special program for orphans. Now he’s fighting a court battle to avoid deportation to a homeland he doesn’t know.
Ariana: Moscow will host a trilateral meeting on Afghan peace on Thursday between Russia, China, and the United States. On Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Kabul said in a statement that the meeting will be held at special representatives’ level in Moscow on April 25. According to the statement, the direct U.S.-Taliban peace talks and the
The Guardian (UK): A row has broken out in Russia over a film about the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, after politicians and former servicemen criticised its unflattering depiction of Red Army soldiers as unpatriotic. Leaving Afghanistan, directed by Pavel Lungin, is based on the experiences of Nikolay Kovalyov, a veteran of the Afghan war who went
The Washington Post: At any one time, 6,500 Afghans are studying Russian across Afghanistan, and the center helps manage their hopes for a free-ride scholarship to a Russian university. Veterans from Moscow’s decade-long war in Afghanistan are also frequent guests, occasionally facing their erstwhile opponents on the soccer pitch. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 23, 2019 WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have “exchanged views” with representatives of Russia and China on the current status of the Afghan peace process, the State Department says. In a statement on March 22, the department said representatives met in Washington on March 21-22 and “discussed common efforts to bring
Tolo News: Hundreds of Afghans, who said they are families of war victims, gathered at the Loya Jirga tent in Kabul on Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of Soviet troops withdrawal from Afghanistan. The war lasted nine years and, in that time, an estimated one million civilians, including children, were killed, along with 90,000 Mujahideen
By Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 14, 2019 n February 14, 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped at gunpoint, held hostage in a Kabul hotel, and killed in a botched rescue attempt. Forty years on, the precise circumstances surrounding the death of the 58-year-old diplomat remain shrouded in mystery.
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan February 13, 2019 Afghanistan is mourning Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the country’s first president after Soviet forces withdrew 30 years ago following a war of occupation. Mojaddedi, a mujahedin commander who fought against the Soviet Army in the 1980s, died late on February 11 in a Kabul hospital. He was 93. A mourning