Rare color photos from the 1980s bring the U.S.S.R.'s "hidden war" to light.
'Jihad By Camera': How U.S.-Trained Afghans Photographed The Soviet Invasion
- By Amos Chapple
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Soviet soldiers prod for land mines on a road in Afghanistan's Panjshir Province. One troop recalled, "There was no such thing as a peaceful population, they were all guerrilla fighters."
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An Afghan man wielding an Italian-made antitank mine.
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A captured identity card for a Soviet soldier named Ivan Zavarzin.
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A soldier who had defected from the Soviet Army and converted to Islam. By the end of the war, some 200 Soviet troops who had deserted or been captured remained behind in Afghanistan, where several still live today.
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Soviet soldiers on patrol. Accusations of atrocities during the war further tarnished the Soviet Union's image. After catching Afghan children torturing wounded comrades, one soldier admitted rounding up several women and children, pouring kerosene on them, and burning them alive.
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A mujahedin fighter with an unexploded Soviet rocket. When the AMRC archive was handed to the U.S. Library of Congress in 2016, a speaker noted the images filled "a huge gap" in the visual record of the Soviet Union's last war.
