Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp - Woodrow ...

mission of reporting the decision by the morning of 25 December over two signatures (his and Kolesnik’s). When they
were leaving the telephone booth Magometov said to Kolesnik: “Well, Colonel, this will now make you or break you.”
They wrote the report right there and the cable was sent by 0200. They went to the embassy together but then
Kolesnik hurried off to the battalion. He had to prepare to carry out the combat mission…He had been appointed
commander of the operation by the Defense Ministry which gave it the codename “Shtorm-333.”
Command of KGB special subunit operations had been entrusted to Gen. Yu. Drozdov, the Chief of the
Directorate of Illegal Intelligence. Yuriy Andropov and Vladimir Kryuchkov pointed out to him by government
communications telephone the necessity of thinking everything through down to the details, the main thing being to
ensure the safety of the participants of the operation. In reply to Kryuchkov’s question: “Can someone else be sent”,
Andropov replied, “We’ll handle it ourselves.” But Lt.General Boris Ivanovich, who was present at the conversation,
asked that Col. Grigoriy Boyarinov, the Chief of the Advanced Officers’ Training Courses, command and coordinate
the operations of the special forces groups, which was also done.
According to Valeriy Yemyshev, an officer of group “A”:
After the first group led by Valentin Shergin was sent to Afghanistan at the beginning of
December there was some tension in the group; many thought that the matter was not limited to this,
but no one knew anything specifically.
On the morning of 22 December Robert Petrovich Ivon called me; he was then the acting
subunit commander since Colonel Gennadiy Nikolayevich Zaytsev was in the hospital. He turned to
me as secretary of the Party organization and said that a team of 30 men were needed to carry out a
mission in Afghanistan. They had to fly out the next day; the specific mission would be given on the
spot. Major Mikhail Romanov was the commander of the group being sent but he himself would
remain on site.
I went to the subunit right away. Part of the people had already gathered there. They were
coordinate the list. They began to prepare for the flight. They prepared all night and in the morning
they flew to Afghanistan from Chkalovskiy Airfield [outside Moscow] on a Tu-134 which, I was
told, was Andropov’s personal aircraft. They first landed in Gur’yev and then Tashkent to refuel.
Upon arrival in Bagram they quartered us in hardstands and tents. We met there with our guys who
were guarding the future rulers of Afghanistan. Yuriy Izotov requested three men of our group.
Romanov gave him Chudesnov, Vinogradov, and Savel’yev. They spent the night in Bagram and in
the morning they put us in busses and went to Kabul.
Soldiers from the “Grom” group were setting the sights of their weapons; still, there were the mountainous
conditions and a new climate. They brought up the gear, bulletproof vests, and helmets. They had sewn additional
pockets into the Afghan uniforms in order to put grenades and weapons magazines [in them] more comfortably.
According to Romanov, commander of the “Grom” group:
They moved to the Embassy in Kabul, where they stayed until the evening of 24 December.
I received a specific mission – relocate to the area where Amin’s external security force was and
remain there for further instructions.
We ended up a kilometer from the Palace and could see it well. A convincing structure with
strong walls. A real fortress standing on a high ground…
They joined up with the “Zenit” special forces group which was located in another place,
next to the Palace. This was also a Committee [KGB] subunit, formed through First Main
Directorate channels. Good guys. I became good friends with the commander of the group, Yasha
Semenov. We had a password then: “Yasha” – “Misha”, and the response “Misha” – “Yasha”. There
were not many of us – about 25.
And according to “Grom” officer Sergey Golov:
In Kabul they quartered us in an unfinished barracks next to the Taj-Bek Palace. We started
trying to equip the place somehow because December is a quite severe month in the Afghan capital
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