The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

vague: ‘To provide gas bombs filled with non-toxic poisonous substances does not appearfeasible.’”Puzanov was tasked by the Center to visit Taraki to inform him that Moscow sharedthe concerns of the Afghan leadership about intensifying reactionary activities. However, asto the requests of the Afghan side regarding the supply of helicopters and transportairplanes manned by Soviet crews, as well as the possibility of deploying paratroopers inKabul, this issue had already been discussed with Comrade Taraki during his visit toMoscow in March of this year.In March and April of 1979, the Soviet leadership firmly maintained its position thatno military detachments would be sent to Afghanistan. Then the month of May arrived.Senior officers of GRU of the General Staff, Vasily Kolesnik and Oleg Shvetz arrived in theUzbek city Chirchik on a secret mission. They were ordered to form a separate detachmentconsisting of 538 people, the very same “Muslim” battalion that would play an importantrole in the events of December 1979.At that time, neither Colonel Kolesnik nor Major Halbaiev, who was appointed thecommander of the Muslim battalion, nor their superiors in the headquarters of theTurkestan military district, nor even the generals from the central apparatus of GRU hadany idea of the purpose of that project. Only with time did those who had been informedbegin to figure out that the goal would be military action on the territory of a neighboringstate. Almost the entirety of the detachment consisted of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmen fromthe Soviet Central Asian republics. The servicemen in the battalion received a specialuniform that was practically identical to that of the Afghan military. The battalion focusedits training on capturing important strategic sites: airports, headquarters, and government419