How Soviet women fought in Afghanistan and how many of them returned home

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Historical Russian memory traditionally connects the image of a front-line woman with the Great Patriotic War. A nurse on the battlefield near Moscow, a Stalingrad anti-aircraft gunner, a nurse in a field hospital, a "night witch" … But with the end of that terrible war, the history of Soviet military women did not end. Servicemen from among the weak half and representatives of the civilian army personnel have taken part in more than one military conflict, in particular in Afghanistan. Of course, most of them were civil servants. But a war without a front line did not make any discounts on gender, age and profession. Saleswomen with nurses often came under fire, burned in planes and were blown up by mines.

How many women left for Afghanistan and how many returned home

There is no official figure on the number of participants in the Afghan war from the Land of the Soviets. But in any case, in the period from 1979 to 1989, this number is expressed, according to various estimates, in two tens of thousands. More than 1,300 of them received awards for their worthy service, at least 60 did not return from Kabul.

Soviet women ended up in Afghanistan for various reasons. Representatives of the SA came here on orders (in the early 80s, the proportion of women in the army was about 1.5%). But there were also enough volunteers, whose motives varied significantly. Doctors and nurses were sent to hospitals and first-aid posts for reasons of professional duty. Some volunteered to carry the wounded out of the shelling, like their predecessors in World War II. There were also women driven by personal financial motives, which did not diminish their contribution to the common cause by the results.

In Afghanistan, contract soldiers were paid double the salary. There were even adventurers: for lonely young ladies, civil service abroad was a way to see the world. And unlike the representatives of the Armed Forces, civil servants could terminate the contract at any time and go home. In Afghanistan, there were also employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, among whom there was also a small percentage of women.

What was the weak half responsible for and how did they adapt to an unsettled life

In the Afghan war, the fair half worked at the logistics bases, served as archivists, translators and ciphers at headquarters, represented the vast majority of medical staff in hospitals and medical units, performed the duties of laundresses, librarians and saleswomen. Often civilian mercenaries combined several cases at once. For example, the typist of the 66th separate motorized rifle brigade in Jalalabad worked in parallel as a hairdresser.

In a nomadic Afghan life, one had to put up with the many difficulties of an uncomfortable life: toilets-booths, a shower from a metal barrel with water in a fence covered with tarpaulin. Living quarters, operating rooms, hospitals and outpatient clinics - everything was absolutely located in tents. As the nurse T. Evpatova recalled, at night huge rats ran in layers of tarpaulin, which periodically fell inside to sleep. Women invented special gauze blankets that detained impartial and dangerous rodents. It was not easy to survive in the temperature regime, when even at night the thermometer did not drop below +40. They slept wrapped in a wet cloth, and with the arrival of the October frosts, they did not part with a pea jacket even in a dream.

Overtime without overtime and total dedication

In addition to American Stingers, ambushes, mines and shelling of convoys, Afghan women in the belligerent country, no less than men, were exposed to many dangers. At the same time, history has not recorded the phenomena of desertion or obvious evasion of military duties. The commander of the 860th separate motorized rifle regiment, Antonenko, said that there was a shortage of blood supplies. And the wounded were carried constantly. When the regiment came from the combat, it was the staff women who acted as donors. And if the operational situation required it, the Afghans boldly entered the battle.

Once a mechanized Soviet column with Moscow advisers was walking from Kabul to Charikar. The column included the head of the pharmacy, senior warrant officer Anna Sagun, who transported alcohol and medicines for the regiment. According to the testimony of the medical instructor of the 45th engineer regiment Valery Maly, they were ambushed along the way. A truck appeared in front of the military KamAZ, and in one burst several people with an armored personnel carrier were killed. While the regimental help was approaching, Anna took a good position under the wheel of an armored vehicle and conducted accurate fire on the souls.

Invented stories of Afghan women and those who did not return home

Of all women who served in Afghanistan, more than 1,300 were awarded Soviet orders and medals. According to information collected by enthusiastic historians, the deaths of at least 60 Afghan women have been confirmed, including 4 warrant officers and about fifty civilian employees. Some were blown up by mines, others were ambushed, some died from serious illnesses, and accidents also took place. A lot of information about ordinary saleswomen, cooks, nurses and waitresses has been collected by Alla Smolina, which has passed three years in Afghanistan.

In February 1985, typist Valentina Lakhteeva volunteered from Vitebsk to go to Afghanistan. After some one and a half months, the military unit near Puli-Khumri, in which the girl worked, came under fire. Valentina could not be saved. For a little more than a year, paramedic Galina Shakleina served in a field hospital near Northern Kunduz. The woman died from the ill-fated blood poisoning. A couple of weeks after the issuance of a referral from the military registration and enlistment office, a native of Voronezh, Tatyana Lykova, died. The girl was enlisted to serve in Kabul as a secretary, but her life was cut short in a downed plane on the way to Jalalabad. In December 1985, Ensign Galina Strelchenok was killed in an unequal battle while repelling an attack on a Soviet column. A few days before demobilization, nurse Tatyana Kuzmina, who was saving an Afghan child, drowned in a mountain river.

Things were much worse during the Great Patriotic War. The employees of the Red Army preferred to shoot themselves than to be captured by the Germans. because they did not recognize the Red Army men as servicemen and mocked us terribly with them.