The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

thanks to the pilot’s skill and professionalism did they avoid catastrophe. When the Tu-134stopped in the most remote corner of the airdrome, Izotov’s commandos disembarked andsecured the perimeter. Jeeps carrying the KGB officer who was in charge of Bagram’smilitary counterintelligence and the deputy commander of the air force, General Gus’kov,approached the plane within a minute. All of the passengers and their luggage were quicklyloaded into cars and driven to an area where the so-called Muslim Battalion was stationed.Karmal and Anahita were allocated a concrete bunker where there was electricity but noheat. It was terribly cold there. Winter had arrived early that year in Afghanistan. Thethermometer often read minus twenty degrees Celsius on those December nights.“You should be on full alert. We are moving into Kabul at night,” Petrov instructedthe officers before disappearing into the dark.***Marshal Ogarkov made another desperate attempt to convince the members of thePolitburo to abstain from military intervention in Afghanistan. Before that, he consulted thecommander-in-chief of the infantry, Pavlovsky, his deputy Akhromeev, and the head of theMain Operational Headquarters of the General Staff, Varennikov. Pavlovsky, who hadn’tforgiven the minister for his refusal to consult with him, coldly enumerated what hisprevious reports contained. “To conclude,” he emphasized, “the majority of Afghans willperceive the arrival of a foreign army on their territory negatively. It is against their natureto welcome our forces. This means that they will take up arms and face us in combat. And,at the same time, they will revolt against the Afghan revolutionaries who have forced ourhands. All of this will amount to deterioration of the situation there.”674