How did the Soviet-Afghan War start and end?

Answer 1

The Soviet Union collapsed while their forces were still fighting in Afghanistan. The new government in Moscow made the decision to withdraw. I did not see it myself, but I was told that the Soviet commander in Afghanistan got out of his vehicle at the border and waited until he was the last one, and then he walked across.and after the soviet was gone the US lost interest in the unstable country and left it to civil war with the mujaheddin fighting its own people.

Answer 2

As all invasions of Afghanistan end. The invader declared victory, retreated in shame, and licked their wounds.

Specifically to the Soviets, they withdrew in 1989, February 15th being the last day. They were under fire the whole time, and lost 500 plus more people on the way out.

They had the sympathy of the British, who had fared no better in 1842, when they left, shortly after demolishing the Kabul marketplace in retaliation for not being allowed to rule.

Currently, the United States is planning a 2011 withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is not expected that their withdrawal will be any different than the Soviet or British ones were.

On the upside, this will set a record in history, though. The relatively small nation of Afghanistan will have defeated three separate expansionist Empires in three separate and consecutive centuries. The British Empire in 1842, the Soviet Empire in 1989 and the American Empire in 2011/12.

Answer 3

It started in 1978 when the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan to buttress the Afghan Communist Puppet Government against the Islamist Mujahedin and Royalist supporters. It ended in 1989 when the Soviet Union decided to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after mounting Soviet deaths (roughly 4,000 soldiers) and an inability to see long-term victory.