This is the Soviet soldier found alive 30 years after dying in Afghanistan

wearethemighty ^ | Aug. 03, 2017 | Blake Stilwel

[TigerLikesRooster]

This is the Soviet soldier found alive 30 years after dying in Afghanistan

By Blake Stilwell
Aug. 03, 11:08 AM

Shortly after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Russian 101st Motorized Rifles were caught in a firefight with the Mujahideen near the city of Herat. A young soldier, 20-year-old Bakhretdin Khakimov, was wounded in the fighting, lost on the battlefield, and presumed dead.

Until now.


Bakhretdin Khakimov in 1980 and now.

Khakimov was a draftee from Samarkand who had only been in the Red Army a short time when he was injured in Herat Province, near Shindand. Some 30 years later, a group of Soviet war veterans founded the Committee for International Soldiers, a group whose mission is to find and identify missing Soviet soldiers or their remains. Most, like Khakimov, are presumed to be dead.

The young soldier now goes by the name of Sheikh Abdullah. He was rescued from the battlefield by locals, nursed back to health and opted to stay with those that helped him survive. He later married an Afghan woman and settled down to a semi-nomadic life. His wife has since died and he does the same work as the man who rescued him.

[PGR88]

Khakimov was a draftee from Samarkand who had only been in the Red Army a short time

He chose to stay with his Muslim brothers.

[MrEdd]

No functional difference between global socialism and Islam.

[TheTimeOfMan]

His transformation into a dirt monkey is almost complete...

Those that have been there know what I am talking about.

[Snickering Hound]

Hmmm. Return to the Worker's Paradise or stay here and hump goats?

[TigerLikesRooster]

He just wanted to grow a beard.

[eastforker]

So he wasn’t a Soviet, he was from Uzbekistan, a muslim city of Samarkand. Probably felt right at home.

[dfwgator]

So he wasn’t a Soviet, he was from Uzbekistan, a muslim city of Samarkand.

Uzbeks - They are the weak link in the Great Chain of Socialism.

[Fiddlstix]

Bingo!

[pax_et_bonum]

Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think he looks like the guy in the photo.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Other pics at link. It appears to be him.

[Loyalist]

Any surprise that conscripts from the Central Asian republics might have preferred desertion and disappearing into a familiar cultural background?

[Wuli]

I know what you mean to say was:

“So he wasn’t a Soviet, he was from Samarkand, a Muslim city in Uzbekistan. Probably felt right at home.”

[beelzepug]

Regardless of who he was or what country he fought for, to all of us who’ve been in war, there but for the grace of God go we.

[Buckeye McFrog]

He chose to stay with his Muslim brothers.

Or he chose to live anyplace else but the Soviet Union. Afghanistan is wild stone age, but so remote that for the most part you are left alone.

[TBP]

The Commies have better clothes.

[TBP]

If an Islamist backwater like Afghanistan is preferable, that says a LOT.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

“... chose to stay with his Muslim brothers”

Just like McMasters sounds like

[blam]

The lure of the good life was to great for him.

[Bull Snipe]

probably to him, preferable to being in the Soviet Army.