Afghanistan: The Uncomfortable War | Beyond East and West

Tetiana Liskina's husband was sent to Afghanistan in September 1985. A year later, he was brought home in a zinc coffin. He was just 23 years old. His little daughter – 1.7 years old.

The Soviet Union unleashed the Afghan war in 1979. For ten years, 160,000 Ukrainians participated in it and about 3,000 died.

In February 1989, Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. This happened when the "empire" was collapsing.

The war was immediately pushed into the past, and its many aspects remained not discussed.

More than 30 years have passed, but it is still hard for the participants in the Afghan war to talk about it. And it is difficult for the children of the dead to find out what happened to their fathers.

The joint hromadske and LSE research project "Beyond East and West" sets out to explore Ukrainians' attitudes to history: in this case what it's like to live the memory of a war condemned by the state that unleashed it.