When describing how he engineered the withdrawal of the 40th Army in his book, Gromov does not cite the popular Russian adage “when leaving, leave,” sometimes attributed to Cicero. However, the description itself proves that he persistently tried to do just that despite pressure from DRA rulers. Had Gromov not been so persistent, Najibullah may have succeeded in persuading Moscow to keep the troops in-country, and the result of that “success” would have been only delaying the fall of his regime at the cost of more OKSVA casualties. Moreover, had the Soviet soldiers stayed for three more years, they would have found the state they had sworn to defend vanish in December 1991. Even as it was, the subsequent process of dividing Soviet units among the 15 newly independent republics proved to be chaotic and antagonistic at times, which would have seriously affected both the supplies and the morale of OKSVA had the contingent still been deployed. Come 1992, and even the largest of the ex-Soviet republics, Russia, would have lacked the resources possessed by the USSR in 1989 to smoothly and securely withdraw the 40th Army had post-Soviet Moscow claimed it for its own. In reality, when 1992 came, there were only seven “Soviet” military advisors left in Afghanistan and they all left the country in April of that year.

In his book, Gromov describes multiple instances when Najibullah and some of the Soviet leaders kept coming up with options that would commit Soviet troops to stay in Afghanistan even after the announcement about withdrawal. In 1988 “the government of Afghanistan made truly ‘heroic’ efforts to stop the 40th Army from leaving at any cost,” Gromov recalled in his book. To do so, the Afghan Defense Ministry made repeated attempts to draw OKSVA into “large-scale combat,” while DRA diplomats argued that the withdrawal should be suspended because Pakistan was failing to fulfill its commitments under the 1988 Geneva Accords. In one instance, also in 1988, Najibullah said that he would agree to the withdrawal of the 40th Army, but asked that Soviet volunteers guard Kabul’s airport and the Hairatan-Kabul highway, which would have required a 12,000-strong division, according to Gromov’s book. A secret Central Committee memo of Jan. 23, 1989, described several options for providing military support to the DRA after the withdrawal, including one similar to what Najibullah asked for—to leave a 12,000-man division to guard the highway so that the Soviets could continue shipping aid. Another option was to ask the U.N. to deploy peacekeepers and keep Soviet troops in until they arrive. A third option was to withdraw OKSVA, but have Soviet military units guard convoys with aid. The fourth option was to “withdraw almost all Soviet troops,” but leave some units behind so they could guard key parts of the Hairatan-Kabul highway. The fifth and final option was to withdraw all troops, but have the Soviet military send in ammunition and other supplies to fully equip and maintain Afghan government units guarding the highway. Ultimately, the Soviet leadership rightly concluded that keeping in regular troops was not an option and withdrew all personnel except advisors, who at one point totaled 2,000, according to an interview Gareyev gave the Rodina journal in 1999.

The Soviet departure did not suffice to end the civil war, as some may have hoped based on the mujahedeen’s stated goal of driving out the Soviets. However, subsequent events proved that the Soviets’ Afghan allies could hold onto power even without Soviet soldiers and, therefore, without significant Soviet casualties, as long as Moscow continued to materially support the government.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan - UK soldiers appear to be fighting Afghans trying to hijack planes to escape:

https://twitter.com/AbraxasSpa/status/1426829681412780037

Meanwhile the Soviet trained and equipped Afghan army is apparently falling apart, plagued by desertions and reports that troops looted and then abandoned former Soviet outposts.

Hmmm. If you replace Soviet with American in that sentence, it sounds like what has been happening over the last couple weeks.