ABSTRACT
In the past two decades, a vast amount of literature has been written on Afghanistan: documents, memoirs, historical works. Following the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, relations between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan developed to the mutual satisfaction of both parties until the revolutionary coup of 27 April 1978 in Kabul. In the context of the global rivalry between the USA and the USSR, the American stake in Pakistan and Iran pressured Afghanistan to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union. In Afghanistan itself the Soviet troops found themselves facing a hostile population that was prepared for a protracted guerrilla war and that was receiving material, financial and other aid from all around the world. On 25 May 1989 the Soviet government announced the number of Soviet casualties in Afghanistan. A representative of Abdurrashid Dostum, the Uzbek leader of the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, provided three An-36 motor aircraft.
