The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

“Here you were saying that everything that we were being taught would never beapplied in real life,” a neighbor told Kurilov on the bus ride home to Balashikha. “Turns outthat we may actually find it useful!”“Yes, it’s quite possible,” agreed Kurilov. “Our time seems to have arrived.”“Shut up, guys,” said a voice from the darkness. “Relax. We will arrive in Kabul andwe’ll have to protect the embassy people again.”In several days, the detachment was transferred first to Tashkent, where everybodyhad to change into a regular soldier’s uniform, and then to the Afghan aviation base inBagram. According to the cover story, the Zenit members, led by Golubev, were theengineering-technical group that was supposed to assist a detachment of GRU specialforces that would be labeled by history as a “Muslim” battalion. The detachment had beenon standby in Bagram for a while.“If you are minesweepers, then why don’t you have any equipment with you?” askedthe befuddled special forces operatives.“It will be brought in later,” explained Golubev, who bore a sergeant’s markings onhis sleeves. On occasion, he would leave somewhere for a long time. Every day, cargoplanes arrived at the aviation base, filled with people, ammunition, and armored vehicles.The Balashikha graduates had been summoned from all over the Soviet Union to be sent toAfghanistan. It was obvious that a major operation was about to begin.***Two weeks had passed since that memorable meeting at Ivanov’s, when, havingsworn the participants to secrecy, the general informed them that the decision had beenreached “at the very top” to “align with the healthy forces within the PDPA.” However, no653