That was the mistake of our politicians. Military doctrine says you go in, carry out your task and go, and give the power back to civilian authorities.
More than 1 million Afghans were killed in the Soviet war, along with almost 14,000 Soviet troops. The war's aftermath included years of civil war and the rise of the Taliban. Do you, personally, have any regrets about this war?
Yes. In any sense -- in a human sense, in a military sense -- I am sorry we did that.
Doesn't a destabilized Afghanistan also pose a strategic risk to Russia? Russia has had its own struggles with Islamic fundamentalists, and this is right on the border of the former Soviet Union.
Of course. First of all it will flow into Central Asia, and from Central Asia it will spread to the south of Russia. That's why the Russian Federation should take active parts in the processes there, economic processes and others.
Why do you think Afghanistan is so little discussed in Russian media today? How does the Russian public think about Afghanistan?
We are preoccupied with other problems. We have problems in the Caucasus, the economy. Today we don't have the society we had in the Soviet Union. Today every family thinks first about how to make ends meet. Even the federal government doesn't have a strategic view of what to do with Afghanistan.
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megan.stack@latimes.com
