📅 On December 25, 1979, at 3:00 p.m., Soviet troops entered Afghanistan.
The first to cross the border were units of the 40th Army, moving over pontoon bridges across the Amu Darya River near Termez, while airborne landings of the 105th Guards Airborne Division began at the Kabul and Bagram airfields. The operation was carried out under a secret resolution of the CPSU Politburo dated December 12, 1979, with the aim of supporting the friendly People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) regime and stabilizing the situation along the USSR’s southern borders.
The troop deployment was initially conceived as a short-term operation to protect key facilities and assist the Afghan army. However, the Soviet contingent was quickly drawn into a full-scale civil war that lasted nearly 10 years. Just two days later, on December 27, Soviet special forces stormed Amin’s Palace, eliminating Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin and replacing him with the more loyal Babrak Karmal.
This day marked the beginning of one of the most dramatic and protracted military conflicts in the history of the late Soviet Union — a war that involved more than 620,000 Soviet servicemen over its course ⚔️📜
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