Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (1988-1989): Leaving Kabul

The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was the phased pull-out of the Soviet 40th Army between 15 May 1988 and 15 February 1989, ending nearly a decade of Soviet military intervention. It was carried out under the Geneva Accords signed in April 1988. The withdrawal was a sign of Mikhail Gorbachev’s new foreign policy, but it left Afghanistan in civil war.

Background

Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in December 1979 to prop up a communist government facing revolt (see Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). They soon found themselves fighting a long counter-insurgency against the mujahideen, Islamic resistance groups armed and financed by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others. At its height the 40th Army numbered roughly 100,000 to 115,000 troops.

By the mid-1980s the war had reached a costly stalemate. The supply of American Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the mujahideen from 1986 made Soviet air operations more dangerous. Gorbachev, who came to power in March 1985, described Afghanistan in February 1986 as a “bleeding wound”, and in November 1986 the Politburo decided to seek withdrawal within about two years. As a first gesture, six regiments were withdrawn in October 1986.

Moscow also changed its Afghan partners. In 1986 the Soviet leadership replaced the Afghan communist leader Babrak Karmal with Mohammad Najibullah, the former head of the secret police. From January 1987 Najibullah offered a policy of “national reconciliation”, including ceasefires and talks with opposition figures, in the hope of building a government that could survive without Soviet troops. Most mujahideen leaders rejected the offer.

The Geneva Accords

UN-sponsored talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan had been under way since 1982, led by the UN envoy Diego Cordovez. On 14 April 1988 the two governments signed the Geneva Accords, with the Soviet Union and the United States as guarantors. The agreements set out non-interference, the return of refugees and a timetable for the departure of Soviet troops within nine months, with half to leave by 15 August 1988.

The accords had a major weakness. The mujahideen, who were not party to them, rejected them and kept fighting. The two superpowers also agreed that each could continue to supply its Afghan allies, a principle known as “positive symmetry”.

The withdrawal

The pull-out began on 15 May 1988. Columns of tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks moved north along the Salang highway through the Hindu Kush, and across the border at Termez and Kushka. Soviet garrisons in the south and east were handed over to the Afghan army, while units protected the roads from ambush. By August about half of the troops had left.

In autumn 1988 the Soviet leadership briefly considered slowing the timetable as the military situation worsened, and the final months saw heavy air and artillery strikes on mujahideen positions along the Salang route. On 15 February 1989 Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, commander of the 40th Army, walked across the Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya into the Uzbek SSR, officially the last Soviet soldier to leave.

The cost of the war

For the Soviet Union, the war drained money, damaged the army’s prestige and became a symbol of the failures of the old leadership. Veterans, known as afgantsy, often returned with physical and psychological wounds to a society that preferred not to talk about the war. In December 1989 the Congress of People’s Deputies formally condemned the 1979 decision to intervene.

Aftermath

Many observers expected the government of President Mohammad Najibullah to fall quickly. Instead, with continued Soviet supplies, it held out, and a large mujahideen offensive against Jalalabad in March 1989 failed. Only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union ended aid did the government collapse, in April 1992.

Rival mujahideen factions then fought over Kabul, and the Taliban took the capital in 1996. Some foreign volunteers who had fought against the Soviets later joined al-Qaeda, a chain of events that led to the war in Afghanistan from 2001.

Key people

• Mikhail Gorbachev: Soviet leader who decided to end the war and pressed his colleagues to accept a withdrawal.
• Mohammad Najibullah: Afghan president from 1987, whose government outlasted the Soviet presence by three years.
• Boris Gromov: commander of the 40th Army who organised the final stages of the withdrawal.
• Diego Cordovez: Ecuadorian UN mediator who negotiated the Geneva Accords over six years.
• Eduard Shevardnadze: Soviet foreign minister who argued for the pull-out and handled the diplomacy with Washington.

Timeline

• 1979, December: Soviet troops enter Afghanistan.
• 1986, 25 February: Gorbachev calls the war a “bleeding wound”.
• 1986, October: Six Soviet regiments are withdrawn.
• 1988, 14 April: The Geneva Accords are signed.
• 1988, 15 May: The full withdrawal begins.
• 1988, 15 August: About half of the Soviet troops have left.
• 1989, 15 February: The last Soviet troops cross the Friendship Bridge at Termez.
• 1992, April: The Najibullah government falls.

Why it matters

The withdrawal was a rare case of a superpower openly admitting that a war could not be won and pulling its army out, and it showed that Gorbachev was willing to cut losses abroad. It foreshadowed the retreat of Soviet power from Eastern Europe later in 1989, while for Afghanistan it opened a new phase of conflict rather than peace.