Another case of US-backed Ukrainian terrorists booby trapping everyday objects has come to light. This time it is water bottles. Previously, ever since 2022, there had been reports of Ukraine dropping booby trapped everyday objects in Donetsk.
Afghan women choose LP records in a music store, before the Taliban came to power. Afghanistan, 1960.
Let us first read an admission coming from the mass murderer, Zbigniew Brzezinski, admitting to the crime of terrorism, all in the name of breaking up the USSR, which in turn was the largest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century, after WWII. The collapse of the USSR, directly and indirectly, resulted in about 30 million Soviet people losing their lives due to poverty, malnutrition, crime, wars and conflicts. Today’s civil war in Ukraine, fuelled by the USA, is also a direct consequence of Zbigniew Brzezinski actions and the collapse of the USSR.
From a 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski on Afghanistan in Le Nouvel Observateur
Q : When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.” Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B : What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
And now, let us move on to an article with an interview, published by “Argumenty i Fakty” on February 6, 1988, debunking the projected accusations directed by the murderer at its victim:
Booby traps used by the Dushmans bear traces of American “technology.” Radio-controlled mines for adults, mines-toys for children
Recently, the “Voice of America” program once again claimed that Soviet troops in Afghanistan continue to allegedly use mines disguised as children’s toys. Our correspondent asked a group of internationalist soldiers who served there over the years to comment on such reports: colonels A. GREBENYUK and A. LOGACHEV, officers of the engineering troops; A. DAVYDOV and S. VERASHCHAGIN, now students of the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute; S. VISLOYAN, V. KARIMOV, S. CHIKIN, workers of the AZLK; V. KARASEV, now a student at MGIMO.
CORRESPONDENT. Who uses mines more often in Afghanistan: Soviet troops or Dushman (Taliban) groups?
GREBENYUK. Our and Afghan troops are not in a defensive position, they have no military need for widespread use of mines. The dushmans defend themselves: striking from around the corner, stealthily, in order to escape from pursuit, they set up minefields, masking them very carefully.
But, in addition, mines are insidious and terrible sabotage weapons, automatic weapons of destruction, which make it possible to inflict losses without putting themselves in danger. Every year, thousands of mines are planted by Dushmans on roads and in populated areas.
DAVIDOV. This is not to say that mines are found in Afghanistan at every turn, but during my year and a half of service there, I was blown up in transport twice. The commander of my guard company, Captain E. Dymov, died, covering a land mine with his body. Last summer, while working in Kabul as part of a student medical team, our group almost fell victim to a motorcycle bomb explosion, we did not reach it by only forty meters.
CORRESPONDENT. Which mines do Dushmans prefer to use?
GREBENYUK. First of all, standard Western-made mines. I can name several types of American, English, and Italian mines (the latter are especially insidious because they have practically no metal and are made of plastic). But, in addition, the Dushmans have a large network of underground workshops where artisanal mines are made. Their closures can be disguised as a piece of a log, a torn hose, two nails, a bolt with a nut, etc. – that is, objects that will not lie around on the roads of poor rural provinces for a long time. It often happens that the contacts of mines and land mines are closed not by the caterpillar of a tank or the wheel of an armoured personnel carrier, but by a local resident who picked up the object, often a child.
KARASEV. Dushmans sometimes manage to secretly remove and use Soviet mines. I witnessed how a shepherd boy was blown up in the morning by a mine set up at night by a gang blocked by us, not far from the village. He was badly injured, bleeding profusely, but still alive. Of course, we crawled out, tried to help, it was necessary to get him to the doctors as soon as possible. The APC drivers had strict orders to drive through this shelled section of the road at high speed, without stopping, so as not to become an easy target. However, the first vehicle braked when the driver saw whom I was carrying.
CORRESPONDENT. Are you personally aware of cases where children were directly victims of Soviet weapons?
VERESHCHAGIN. When I served as a medical instructor, I saw children maimed only by Dushman mines.
KARASEV. There were cases when children died playing with real ammunition found somewhere. But it’s scary when bandits hand a child an anti-personnel light mine in the form of a toy, show them which button to press and where to put it… They can either bribe them or just force them [to do it].
KARIMOV. One of the cars in our convoy was blown up on the road in the mountains, and a teenager was immediately spotted behind the rocks. It turned out that he lived nearby, bandits came, left a bag of mines, said that if he did not put them, they would destroy the whole family. The boy swore that he would not mine anymore, but begged us to leave him a machine gun so that he, the eldest in the family, could protect his brothers and sisters from the Dushmans.
CHIKIN. There are teenagers aged 10-14 in the Dushman detachments who were abducted abroad or grew up among bandits. In front of me, a 13-year-old teenager shot our officer in the back from two steps and seriously wounded him. He was paid in advance for this. The Afghans were ready to tear him up themselves. We didn’t allow it – what would it be like for us? We took him away, handed over…
CORRESPONDENT. The American magazine “Reader’s Digest” describes examples of the operation of “diabolical Soviet weapons”. In particular, how a 7-year-old boy became crippled by the explosion of a mine made in the form of a harmless tin can…
GREBENYUK. The most common casings used by Dushmans for the explosives charges, mines or homemade bombs are cans and bottles. Sealed, they often attract the attention of children.
VISLOYAN. When, standing at the post, you see them walking in search of food – through the mud, in galoshes on bare feet, collecting some garbage in a canvas bag – my heart bleeds; and I, and many of our guys, often gave them our rations.
CORRESPONDENT. Another example from “Reader’s Digest”: “A 10-year-old Afghan shepherd boy noticed something white and shiny in the grass, like a jewellery box. The moment he picked it up, the box exploded, turning his hand into a bloody mess.”
Are there any non-traditional mines in service with our army, such as stainless steel, non-standard forums, etc.?
GREBENYUK. All Soviet mine weapons have a pronounced identification: protective colouring, clear markings, a regular, as a rule, rounded shape clearly indicate that these are engineering ammunition intended for military purposes. Mines used by our troops to protect bridges, tunnels, overpasses, and other objects from sabotage are necessarily protected by wire fences with clearly visible signs warning of danger in three languages: Russian, Farsi, and Pashto.
CORRESPONDENT. Young children and many adults in Afghanistan cannot read…
LOGACHEV. The civilian population and the Afghan authorities are informed about these minefields. Neither our troops nor the Afghan troops have the right to lay mines without coordinating it with them. Unauthorised, accidental installation would be a gross violation of the requirements of our charters and regulations.
CORRESPONDENT. But surely the military effect of designated mines is lower than that of secret mines?
GREBENYUK. Definitely. But we are deliberately unmasking their installation sites in order to protect the civilian population.
CORRESPONDENT. Since the situation and the composition of the temporary contingent of Soviet troops are changing, could “orphan” minefields arise as a result of one oversight or another?
LOGACHEV. Information about minefields is extremely accurate, their location is recorded and reflected on maps; this information is always transmitted during a change of command or military units – until a mandatory order is received to remove the minefield. If someone blows up there after that, then the perpetrators are brought to criminal responsibility.
CORRESPONDENT. Have you ever met with booby-trapped dolls, weapons, as defined by the Voice of America, “specifically aimed at barely able-bodied children”?
GREBENYUK. I personally have not worked with mines made in the form of toys. But I saw mined fruits, mines in candy wrappers, fountain pen mines, and mined pencils. This is not a new technique. After the victory of the revolution on Cuba, the Americans left there a whole “arsenal of death” with instructions on how to mine pens, books, tables, doors, radio equipment, etc. As a specialist who has to study all these things, I can say that the booby traps used by the Dushmans bear traces of American “technology”.
These mines are usually used by Dushmans in order to make it difficult to detect more powerful charges – at wells, on the threshold, in walls and hearths of houses, with pressure, tension, and thermal drives. Many of these mines cannot be cleared, and some of them are equipped with an additional hidden radio fuse in addition to the main one. Such mines are most often found in populated areas, in crowded, busy places, where clearance cannot be delayed.
VISLOYAN. Colorful toys, pens, etc., especially contraband ones with electronics, are sometimes simply imposed by travelling merchants. Sometimes, they are also sold by children who do not even suspect that there may be a time bomb inside.
CORRESPONDENT. Any weapon, even such an inhumane one, must have some kind of logic of use. Can toy mines be considered a weapon of provocation?
GREBENYUK. I have no doubt that Afghans clearly understand who mines schools, mosques, roads to reservoirs in order to counteract the establishment of a peaceful life, normal human and social relations, and the elimination of ignorance. And they understand that neither we nor the Afghan army have the slightest military-political need to use booby traps, as well as there are no such weapons themselves.
The political point of using such weapons by the Dushmans, in my opinion, is to create an atmosphere of fear in order to destabilise and expel people from the country. At the same time, the maimed children are given the role of visual and living symbols of terror. The subsequent accusations against us of committing these terrible crimes are only a continuation of subversive work by other means.
The conversation was conducted by V. ZADERA