Disinfo: Unlike the US, the USSR entered Afghanistan at the request of the legitimate government

Summary

Unlike the US in 2001, when the USSR entered Afghanistan in 1979, it did at the request of the Afghan government of the time with representation at the UN.

Disproof

The claim is false, part of a long-term effort by the Kremlin to whitewash and instrumentalise the history of the country, and in this case specifically the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan.

Declassified US and Soviet documents show that the USSR invaded Afghanistan out of fear that president Hafizullah Amin, who had recently toppled and killed pro-Soviet president Nur Taraki, was considering switching sides towards the West. During a Politburo meeting on December 12, 1979, Soviet leadership decided to intervene in the power struggle in Afghanistan against Amin, first launching a covert operation to try to murder him. After efforts to poison Amin failed, Soviet leaders approved sending a military contingent to the country following an “appeal of the government of Afghanistan”. This alleged appeal, hoisted by the USSR leadership at the time, only emerged after the Soviet invasion had already begun and Amin and some close aides had already been killed by Soviet paratroopers. The appeal was already seen sceptically at the time and has been proven by historians to be a mere pretext for the invasion, launched after Soviet military team ‘Zenit’ had seized the radio-television centre in Kabul.

See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that in 1940 the Baltic States asked to be incorporated in the USSR, that there was no political persecution in Stalinist Poland, that the UK and the US did not support the USSR in WWII until 1945, that Ukraine never had independence before joining the Soviet Union, that Russia has not started a single war in the last 50 years, or that the West is rewriting history by claiming the USSR colluded with Nazi Germany.

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Ahí les Va - YouTube [from 00:01:23 to 00:01:32], [from 00:02:12 to 00:02:21] [from 00:01:23 to 00:01:32], [from 00:02:12 to 00:02:21] (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 258
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 07/09/2021
  • Article language(s) Spanish
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Afghanistan, US, USSR
  • Keywords: USSR, Historical revisionism
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Disproof

Recurring disinformation linked to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

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Disproof

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There is a significant body of evidence proving that Russia was involved in the 2014 Vrbětice explosion, therefore there is no ground to claim that the Vrbětice case was a planned disinformation campaign.

Disinfo: Russia not bound by Minsk deals, only Ukraine and DNR/LNR are warring sides

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Sep 06, 2021
Disproof

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