CSTO States commemorate internationalist soldiers

Today, the CSTO countries pay tribute to the memory of soldiers who performed their service duty outside their homeland.
Belarus and Kazakhstan celebrate Internationalist Soldier Remembrance Day. Kyrgyzstan marks Day of the Withdrawal of Soviet Troops from Afghanistan. In Russia, it is Remembrance Day for Russians who performed their service duty outside their homeland.
Internationalist soldiers are also remembered today in Armenia and Tajikistan.
On February 15, 1989 at 10:30 a.m. Lieutenant-General Boris Gromov, 40th Army Commander, was the last of the soldiers of the Limited Contingent of Soviet Troops to cross the bridge over the Amu Darya dividing the USSR and Afghanistan.
More than 600 thousand soldiers and about 21 thousand civil workers performed military service in the Limited Contingent in Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
From January 1980 to February 1989, 205,863 persons were awarded with state awards and 73 servicemen were awarded with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for successful performance of military tasks.
Nearly 15 thousand servicemen of the Limited Contingent and more than 100 thousand Afghans were killed in action.
Today, living flowers and wreaths will be laid at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow and other places in our country connected with the memory of the fallen warriors.
Internationalist soldiers were honoured today also at 201 Russian Military Base on the territory of the Republic of Tajikistan.
According to the press service of the Central Military District of the Russian Defence Ministry, the command of the military base demonstrated to Afghan War veterans how modern military training exercises of the reconnaissance servicemen are carried out at Liaur proving ground.
“Afghan War veterans are considered to be the largest category of internationalist soldiers. However, today we remember all those who performed their military duty far away from their homeland: in Angola and Mozambique, Vietnam and Cambodia, Laos and China, Egypt and Algeria, Yemen and Ethiopia, Lebanon and Syria.
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