Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp - Woodrow ...

Only Kolesnik, Shvets, and Khalbayev in the battalion knew the new mission. The KGB special subunits
were also preparing to assault Taj-Bek. The signal to begin the operation in Kabul was the demolition of the
“communications lines conduit.” According to Aleksey Polyakov, who headed the “Zenit” group in Kabul:
The responsibility for sabotaging the lines of communications was entrusted to me personally by
KGB Chairman Yu. V. Andropov. There were 15 reconnaissance saboteurs and KGB officers in the
diversion group besides me.
[Translator’s note: The Russian root “divers-“ can apply to both sabotage and diversionary
operations and is translated here as best suits the context]
In starting to carry out the mission we first of all tried to identify the place in the Kabul
communications system which was most vulnerable and easily accessible and also would not require
much time to place an explosive device to obtain a great effect from the diversion.
A Soviet communications specialist was found through security officer Bakhturin with
whose aid we managed to determine the location of the central line communications center. The
long-distance and local communications lines were laid out from this center which had their source
in a specially-constructed bunker or, to put it more simply, conduit. The entire communications
system in Kabul had been organized under the supervision of West German specialists and therefore
the arrangement of this conduit and the principle of the cable distribution in it were a mystery to us.
They began with scouting this conduit. It was situated 5-6 meters from the communications
center building right on a sidewalk but the entrance to the center was on the opposite side. Opposite
the conduit, across the road, was an Afghan bank and 30-50 meters away at a street intersection was
a traffic control post, but in front of the conduit, along our travel route, was a hotel (about 100-120
meters [away]). There were no other residential structures near the conduit. However the conduit
was under constant observation by the communications center security post. This imposed additional
difficulties.
A brief visual survey gave this result: the conduit hatch was covered by a rectangular
concrete slab about 10 cm thick with four holes which initially appeared to us that they should go all
the way through. But it turned out in fact the holes in the slab did not go through. In the process of
further surveillance they had to use an elementary method such as depicting smoke around the
conduit. In this regard I took a handkerchief with Afghan coins from my pocket along with a lighter.
With the set of coins I determined the diameter of the openings, their depth, and, what is interesting,
the holes were not strictly aligned vertically but at an angle of about 15 cm from one another.
There was a guy in the detachment nicknamed “Kulibin” [Valeriy Volokh] – author’s note).
On arrival at the villa I summoned him and told him about the situation. “Kulibin” did not let us
down. On the second or third day he brought in two tongs which he had fashioned in the Soviet
Embassy repair shop. We had to test them in action. We needed to find an analogous conduit in
Kabul to do this. Such a conduit was soon found on the edge of the Afghan capital.
The entire diversionary group actually drove to the site of the conduit’s local in the dark in
three UAZ [military transport] vehicles. Unexpectedly two taxis formed up with us in the center of
Kabul and started to follow persistently. We figured: surveillance was sitting on our tail. What were
we to do
Along the route near the conduit in question was a small store near which we stopped
under the pretext of buying vegetables or fruit. The taxi drivers also stopped and approached us. We
purposely spoke loudly in Russian and distracted the taxi drivers while the reconnaissance
personnel tested the tongs. They turned out to be necessary. After testing our “diversionary”
instrument we made further plans for the diversion and began to implement them. First and
foremost, they closely studied all the routes of approach to and withdrawal from the target, the
presence of military units and institutions, fixed security posts, traffic control posts, mobile patrols,
43