Talk:Soviet–Afghan War

I saw that flag at a parade at the time and decided to digitalise it… I don’t know what it means but it wasn’t used for Sarandoy. AfghanParatrooper19891 (talk) 06:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Removed. Too much cruft here anyway. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions! AfghanParatrooper19891 (talk) 16:10, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

It starts out by saying that "3 million Afghans were killed" out of a population of 13.5M, which is ridiculous. What were they firebombing towns? Mass executing civilians? There are usually many times as many people wounded as killed, so what, half the population was wounded or killed at some point during the war? It wasn't even that bad in Serbia during WW1, and that's about as severe a case as I'm aware of. Then in the info box below that is says that 3 million is the number of casualties. Not killed. And that's the maximum estimate, which is not the most likely one. Casualties includes all the wounded, captured, missing, and killed, the last generally being by far the smallest portion. Maybe if someone took all the deaths that occured in Afghanistan during that ten year period and said "okay these were clearly caused by the war" and wrote that number down you might get something like that. Although I wonder who was keeping accurate counts of the various tribes and villages and what happened to all the people in them over a decade.

Then it says there was 200,000 mujahideen, with 150,000 casualties. 75% of them were killed or wounded? They won the war in spite of only having 50,000 fighters left? Does that include POWs, like most casualty counts? Is 200,000 the total number of fighters who served at some point during the war? Was that the average overall size of their force, which stayed constant the whole time in spite of fighters being killed or wounded, deserting, retiring from age or sickness? It didn't start out as 50K and end up at 200K? At the numbers on the other side measured by the same metric? Hard to have faith in anything an article tells you when you are already having serious doubts before you start to scroll down.

Idumea47b (talk) 00:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Short answer, is the information you query WP:VERIFIABLE? If not verifiable (to good quality RSs), it should be removed. If there is nuance to information, it should not be represented in the infobox in a Wiki voice as a "fact". Cinderella157 (talk) 09:39, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• 3E1I5S8B9RF7, you made unexplained changes to the casualty figures in the infobox here but not to the body of the article. "Key facts" in the infobox should be supported by the body of the article and the article remain complete without the infobox (WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). If there are significant difference in figures given in good quality sources, this becomes a point of nuance that cannot be effectively captured in an infobox. This part of the infobox is particularly bloated and should be rationalised. My revert is not so much a matter of what is being changed but a matter of its execution. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:18, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Following some figures for civilian casualties from the literature.

Estimates of Afghan losses vary, but it is believed that anywhere from 800,000 to 1.2 million Afghans died as a result of the fighting.^[1]

The casualty figures we have are more or less inaccurate guesses, often put into circulation for propaganda reasons. But probably somewhere between 600,000 and 1.5 million Afghans were killed in the Soviet war.^[2]

For Afghan civilian casualties, Dr Antonio Giustozzi has suggested a low figure of 600,000; a widely accepted figure is 1–1.5 million; General Lyakhovski gives the highest figure of 2.5 million, but he gives no source.^[3]

A careful analysis of data collected in refugee camps relating to patterns of war-related mortality concluded that between 1978 and 1987, unnatural deaths in Afghanistan amounted to 876,825 (Khalidi, 1991: 107). On average, this represented over 240 deaths every day for 10 years straight, or over 60 Afghan deaths for each Soviet soldier who died as a result of the war.^[4]

Carpet bombings, razed villages, mass executions, torture, starvation, disease, and landmines caused horrific casualties and created masses of refugees. Astonishingly for a country with high birth rates, Afghanistan’s population actually declined during the war from 13.3 million 1979 to 11.5 million in 1987.^[5]

References

--Jo1971 (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The Soviets apparently used Napalm in the Laghman massacre. AfghanParatrooper19891 (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I have tried correcting and clarifying the casualties figures in the infobox, but Cinderella157 reverted it yesterday, even though all my figures had citations. For one, under Afghanistan communist casualties, the wrong figure is currently listed; 13,310 dead by 1988. But that is the official Soviet fatality figure[1], not the fatality figure of the Afghan communist government. My edit had Antonio Giustozzi as a source, who lists a detailed breakthrough of Afghan communist government forces who died by each year, amounting to over 58,000 dead (page 271).

I also gave a range from 1 to 3 million dead, to clarify.

What were they firebombing towns? Mass executing civilians?

Actually yes. And they did that for over nine years. See also Soviet war crimes and the "War crimes" section in this article. Whether it was "not that bad" or worse than in Serbia during WW1 is something that is irrelevant for this article. The mujahideen had 75,000 to 90,000 dead. As in every article, we go by what reliable sources say. I will try adding this data in the infobox, if anyone finds other good sources, they can add them. But just going on by hyperbole and not believing the sources is just no valid reason to derail the article. --3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 16:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the official Soviet figure about casualties: That number changed over time.

Statistics for those who died in the war are disputed. The first official figure—which MPA head Aleksei Lizichev released before the war ended—gave 13,310 dead as of May 1, 1988. But the number grew. In 1989, after the war ended, the GS published the figure of 13,833 soldiers, including 1,979 officers, who were killed (presumably in combat) or died of wounds and sickness; 572 security service (KGB and border guard); 28 MVD personnel; and 190 military advisers, 145 of them officers. Of those who died, 62.5 percent were aged 18 to 20. According to one source, anyone fit to be transported to the Soviet Union was sent there for treatment so as not to enlarge casualty statistics. By the end of the 1990s, it was officially admitted that the total number exceeded 15,000 (15,051), plus 417 either missing in action or captured, of whom 130 had been liberated by January 1, 1999. […] One Russian source writing in the 2000s put the number of deaths at approximately 19,000.^[1]

References

--Jo1971 (talk) 17:11, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

3E1I5S8B9RF7, I expained here, why I reverted your edit. You have reinstated it (with a correction) and the comment that (in part), This is just the first step of the process. It is more important to remedy the body of the article since the infobox is a reflection of the article - not the other way around. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:49, 13 June 2024 (UTC)