News Desk
The Russian Embassy in Colombo has pushed back against a recent newspaper article, disputing the characterisation of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan as a defeat and drawing a pointed comparison with the NATO withdrawal of 2021.
In a formal response to the piece, “Civilizational dialogue proving a remote possibility as realpolitik rages” by L. Ockersz, the embassy said references to an alleged Soviet defeat in Afghanistan were completely inappropriate. It said the withdrawal of Soviet troops, completed in February 1989, was carried out in an orderly manner and bore no resemblance to what it described as the disgraceful flight of NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, which it said left behind expensive military equipment following a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Taliban.
The embassy said Soviet forces had built hospitals, schools, roads and industrial facilities across Afghanistan during their presence there. It noted that the very camps later used by American and NATO troops were among the infrastructure originally constructed by the Soviet army. NATO, the embassy argued, built nothing and instead destroyed the social, industrial and logistical infrastructure that had existed, leaving Afghan people without access to it.
Ambassador Levan Dzhagaryan, currently Russia’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, was cited in support of the account. The embassy said Dzhagaryan served in the Soviet Embassy in Kabul at the time and was a direct witness to the 1989 withdrawal.
