MOSCOW, Feb 15: Russia on Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, haunted by its catastrophic war against Mujahideen and convinced the trauma harbours lessons for western forces today.

On Feb 15, 1989 the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan, ending a war that Moscow initially saw as a brief incursion to bolster its Afghan supporters but became a protracted and bloody struggle that lasted almost 10 years.

The war, which cost over 13,000 Soviet lives and may have killed as many as one million Afghans, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

“We did not expect the war to turn out like it did. We had the wrong strategy maybe. We shouldn’t have taken our troops there,” said Ruslan Aushev, a highly decorated veteran and lieutenant-general in the conflict.

“At a certain moment we made a military mistake that led to a political mistake,” said Aushev, who went on to become president of the Russian republic of Ingushetia.

The last Soviet soldier to leave was the commander of its forces in Afghanistan, Lt-Gen Boris Gromov, who crossed the Friendship Bridge across the Amu Darya (river) into Soviet Uzbekistan at midday on Feb 15.

“I am convinced of one thing. That it is irresponsible to forget about lessons like Afghanistan,” Gromov, a hero of the USSR and now governor of the Moscow region, told the Rossiskaya Gazeta daily.—AFP