Total deaths for the following Soviet military actions are given in the book “Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century.” (Greenhill Books, 1997)
War in Korea (1950-1953) - 299
Military Assistance to Asia, Africa and Middle East - 145
Events in Hungary (1956) - 720
Czechoslovakia (1968) - 96
Border conficts in the Far East and Kazakhstan (1969) - 60
Afghanistan (1979-1989) - 14,751
Total: 16,071
That sounds about right. The Soviets took enormous casualties during WWII so I think that may have influenced the Politburo to be cautious. Until Putin. He was born after WWII. So he is repeating the mistakes of his precessors by using Russian grunts as cannon fodder in his war of conquest right now.
Some Soviet pilots and advisors were killed in action in No. Vietnam including during the raid on Son Tay POW camp. I was just leaving a journalism visit/fact-finding mission in S. Vietnam and Cambodia, airborne to be exact, when that raid took place.
A few may have been killed over Laos.
Just a few interesting sidebar comments.