Soviet military in Angola. How the USSR fought in Angola

Little is said about this, but in the years cold war The USSR defended its interests not only in the countries of the social bloc, but also in distant Africa. Our military participated in many African conflicts, the largest of which was Civil War in Angola.

unknown war

The fact that the Soviet military fought in Africa, for a long time it was not customary to speak. Moreover, 99% of the citizens of the USSR did not know that there was a Soviet military contingent in distant Angola, Mozambique, Libya, Ethiopia, North and South Yemen, Syria and Egypt. Of course, rumors were heard, but they, not confirmed by official information from the pages of the Pravda newspaper, were treated with restraint, like stories and conjectures.
Meanwhile, only through the line of the 10th Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR from 1975 to 1991, 10,985 generals, officers, ensigns and privates passed through Angola. During the same time, 11,143 Soviet military personnel were sent to Ethiopia. Considering the Soviet military presence in Mozambique, we can talk about more than 30 thousand Soviet military specialists and privates on African soil.

However, despite such a scale, the soldiers and officers who performed their "international duty" were as if non-existent, they were not given orders and medals, the Soviet press did not write about their exploits. It was as if they didn't exist official statistics. As a rule, the military cards of participants in African wars did not contain any records of business trips to the African continent, but simply an inconspicuous stamp with a unit number, behind which the 10th Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR was hidden. This state of affairs was well reflected in his poem by the military translator Alexander Polivin, who wrote during the battles for the city of Cuitu-Cuanavale

“Where have we, my friend, been brought with you,
Probably a big and necessary thing?
And they tell us: “You couldn’t be there,
And the earth did not turn red with the blood of Russian Angola "

First soldiers

Immediately after the overthrow of the dictatorship in Portugal, on November 11, 1975, when Angola gained its long-awaited independence, the first military specialists, forty special forces and military translators appeared in this African country. Fifteen years of fighting with the colonial troops, the rebels were finally able to come to power, but this power still had to be fought for. At the helm of Angola was a coalition of three national liberation movements: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Union for the Complete Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). The Soviet Union decided to support the MPLA. With the departure of the Portuguese, Angola became a real battlefield for geopolitical interests. The MPLA, which was supported by Cuba and the USSR, was opposed by UNITA, FNLA and South Africa, which, in turn, were supported by Zaire and the United States.

What did they fight for?

What did the USSR achieve when it sent its "African special forces" to distant lands, to distant Africa? The goals were primarily geopolitical. Angola was seen by the Soviet leadership as an outpost of socialism in Africa, it could become our first enclave in South Africa and could withstand the economically powerful South Africa, which, as you know, was supported by the United States.

During the years of the Cold War, our country could not afford to lose Angola; Soviet Union. In terms of trade relations, Angola was of little interest to the USSR, the export areas of the countries were similar: timber, oil and diamonds. It was a war for political influence.

Fidel Castro once said succinctly about the significance of Soviet assistance: "Angola would have no prospects without the political and logistical assistance of the USSR."

How and in what did they fight?

From the very beginning of the USSR's military participation in the African conflict, they were given carte blanche to conduct military operations. This was reported by a telegram received from the General Staff, which indicated that military specialists have the right to take part in hostilities on the side of the MPLA and Cuban troops.

In addition to the "manpower", which consisted of military advisers, officers, ensigns, privates, sailors and combat swimmers (the USSR seconded several of its military ships to the shores of Angola), weapons and special equipment were also supplied to Angola.

However, as Sergey Kolomnin, a participant in that war, recalls, weapons were still not enough. However, it lacked opposing side. Most of all, of course, there were Kalashnikov assault rifles, both Soviet and foreign (Romanian, Chinese and Yugoslav) assembly. There were also Portuguese Zh-3 rifles left over from colonial times. The principle of "how we can help" was manifested in the supply to Angola of the remaining from the time of the Great Patriotic War reliable, but somewhat outdated by that time PPD, PPSh and Degtyarev machine guns.

The uniform of the Soviet military in Angola was without insignia, at first it was customary to wear the Cuban uniform, the so-called "verde olivo". She was not very comfortable in hot conditions. African climate, but the military, as a rule, does not choose their wardrobe. Soviet soldiers had to resort to army ingenuity, order more light form at the tailors. Make changes to ammo official level, Lieutenant General Petrovsky once conceived to add insignia to it and change the material, but his proposals were met with hostility by the command. People were dying on the Angolan fronts, and it was considered frivolous to deal with issues of form in such conditions.

Change of course

Angola, as well as Lebanon, and others African countries we missed. Now we can talk about it. When the USSR collapsed and the political course changed in the country, our military contingent was withdrawn from Africa. A holy place, as you know, is never empty. The President of the same Angola, Dus Santos (who, by the way, graduated from Baku University and is married to a Russian) had to look for new allies. And, not surprisingly, they were the United States.

The Americans immediately stopped supporting UNITA and switched to helping the MPLA. Today, American oil companies operate in Angola, Angolan oil is supplied to China, has its own interests in Angola and Brazil. At the same time, Angola itself remains one of the poorest countries in the world with a poverty rate of 60 percent, outbreaks of the HIV epidemic and total unemployment.

Soviet Africa turned out to be an unfulfilled dream, and several hundred Soviet military men who had been sent there to fulfill their "international duty" would never return.

"The land of Angola is soaked with the blood of the dead Cubans," Tenhiwe Mtintso, the South African ambassador to Cuba, said in 2005. During the entire time of the civil war in Angola, Havana sent more than 300 thousand Cuban troops here, more than 4 thousand of whom died. Why did a distant Latin American country make such sacrifices, having been embroiled in an internal conflict for more than fifteen years?

Loyalty to the ideas of the world revolution

The situation in Angola, which had been fighting for its independence from Portugal since 1961, began to deteriorate again in 1975 on the eve of the final withdrawal of the Portuguese. The fact is that there was no unity in the ranks of the Angolan national liberation movement. Three independent anti-colonial forces operated in the country: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), led by Agostinho Neto, the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Complete Independence of Angola (UNITA). The situation was exacerbated by military intervention South Africa, which provided support to UNITA. The USSR and Cuba supported the MPLA, which adhered to Marxist ideas.

In the Angolan conflict, Cuba acted independently and was much more active than the USSR, which for a long time did not recognize the presence of its military specialists in Angola. Cuban military instructors were sent to the Portuguese colony even before independence, in the summer of 1975, in order to prepare MPLA units for their subsequent reorganization into a regular army. In August 1975, the intervention of South Africa began, which supported UNITA, and in early November, Cuba decided to send its regular troops to help the MPLA. According to some reports, this was done without the consent of the USSR. The Cuban military played one of decisive roles in the battle for Luanda, which culminated in the proclamation on November 11, 1975 of an independent People's Republic Angola and the coming to power of the MPLA. This was the beginning of Operation Carlotta, which lasted until the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola in 1991. By the beginning of 1976, the military contingent sent by Havana to this African country reached thirty-six thousand people. In general, more than 300 thousand Cuban military took part in the civil war in Angola.

Why was Cuba so interested in supporting this distant African country? Here big role two factors played: historical and ideological.

In March 1976, addressing his people, Fidel Castro declared: “We Cubans helped our Angolan brothers, first of all, because we proceeded from revolutionary principles, because we are internationalists. Secondly, we did it because our people are both Hispanic and Latino African. Millions of Africans were brought to Cuba by the colonizers as slaves. Part of the Cuban blood is African blood.”

Thus, the operation in Angola reflected the foreign policy strategy of Cuba, which intended to become the first Latin American state to fight on another continent in the name of the idea of world revolution.

Significance for the entire African continent

Cuba's actions in Angola had repercussions for other African countries as well. One of the most significant battles of the Angolan Civil War is the battle that the Cubans nicknamed "Angolan Stalingrad". It really became a turning point not only in the protracted civil war, but also in the fight against South African apartheid. We are talking about the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1987-1988, which ended with the victory of the Angolan government forces and led to the withdrawal of South African troops from Angola and the liberation of Namibia, and also brought the African National Congress to power in South Africa. Nelson Mandela himself acknowledged that "Quito Cuanavale was a turning point in the struggle for freedom" of the black population of South Africa. And Fidel Castro emphasized that "the end of apartheid was put in Cuito Cuanavale and in the southeast of Angola, with the participation of more than 40 thousand Cuban fighters on this front, along with Angolan and Namibian soldiers."

Without the Cubans, this victory might not have happened. In 1987, the Angolan government attempted an attack on Maviga, a UNITA base in the province of Cuando Cubango. The help of South Africa allowed the Unitovites to repel this attack and launch an offensive against the stronghold of government troops in Cuito Cuanavale. Then, in November 1987, Fidel Castro transferred additional forces and equipment to Angola. The USSR also sent aid to the country's government. The offensive of UNITA and South African troops was stopped on November 16, 10-15 km from Cuito Cuanavale, the defense of which continued until March 1988. After an unsuccessful attempt at a decisive assault on the city by UNITA and South Africa, the Angolan-Cuban troops launched a counteroffensive. By the end of May, they were ten kilometers from the border with Namibia. This forced South Africa to enter into negotiations, which ended with the signing in December of the same year of the Brazzaville Protocol, which provided for the withdrawal of both South African and Cuban troops from Angola.

The Angolan operation was the largest for Cuba. In Africa, the Cubans once again demonstrated their loyalty to revolutionary thinking and the principles of internationalism.

Since the mid 70s. of the last century, this former Portuguese colony became the object of a multi-level confrontation. At the national level, the war was fought between the MPLA national liberation movement that came to power and the armed opposition from UNITA and the FNLA, at the regional level between Angola and South Africa, and, finally, on a global level, two superpowers competed - the USSR and the USA. National liberation movements were also involved in this conflict: SWAPO, fighting for the liberation of Namibia, and the ANC, which opposed the usurpation of power in South Africa by the white minority.

The scope of the confrontation, as well as the number of forces involved in the conflict, went far beyond the boundaries of one country and at an ever-increasing pace turned this hot spot planet into a large-scale zone of instability, threatening to turn into a hotbed of global conflict between the leading nuclear powers.

Almost for the first time in the history of the USSR, the Soviet leadership set the task thousands of kilometers from the borders of their Fatherland, in distant South Africa, to help another country in building a national army, repelling external aggression and fighting against internal armed opposition. And not only. The leadership of the USSR, regardless of the means, sought to turn Angola into the standard of an African socialist state, completely and completely oriented towards the Soviet Union. In the broad sense of the word, Angola, which occupied an important geostrategic position and rich natural resources(oil, diamonds, iron ore), was considered by the Soviet leadership as a kind of key to Africa, as a base for spreading its political and military influence in the region.

In terms of global confrontation with the United States, Angola was an important object of interest on the part of the leadership of the Soviet Armed Forces. After the declaration of independence of Angola, an agreement was signed between the USSR and the NRA on the use of its military infrastructure. Soon, the naval bases of Angola came under the control of the Soviet operational squadron, airfields were provided for landings of our strategic, reconnaissance, transport and anti-submarine aviation. And thousands of military advisers have been sent to this country to create a national armed forces.

"BATTLE FOR CUITU-CUANAVALE"

Soviet military aid. Only in the three months that have passed since the declaration of independence on November 11, 1975, 27 large-tonnage transports from the USSR and Cuba arrived from the USSR to the ports of Angola, controlled by MPLA detachments, with military equipment, vehicles, weapons and ammunition. Weapons for the MPLA were also supplied by Yugoslavia, the GDR, and Algeria.

In total, up to April 1976, up to 30 Mi-8 helicopters, 10 MiG-17 and MiG-19 fighters, 12 MiG-21 vehicles of various modifications, 70 T-34 tanks were delivered from the USSR only to the MPLA, and then the government formed by it , 200 T-54 tanks, 50 PT-76 amphibious tanks, more than 300 BTR-152, BTR-60PB, BMP-1 and BRDM, about 100 installations salvo fire BM-21 and BM-14. 122-mm artillery systems D-30, mortars, anti-aircraft installations ZIS-3-76, ZPU-1, ZU-23-4, ZU-23-2, portable anti-aircraft missile systems"Strela-2" and large quantities of modern small arms. Most of of this weapon was supplied "in the interests of the Cubans" who arrived in Angola to help the MPLA.

Trying to prevent the complete defeat of UNITA, its faithful ally in the region, the South African army repeatedly invaded Angola. The selected forces of the group of South African troops, concentrated on the border of Angola with Namibia, in particular the Buffalo battalion, the 101st "black" battalion of the territorial forces of Namibia and the 61st mechanized brigade of the South African Armed Forces participated in the battles on Angolan territory. In total, the grouping of South African troops in the border areas consisted of about 20 thousand soldiers and officers, up to 150 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 400 artillery pieces. The actions of the ground troops were supported by more than 80 modern combat and transport aircraft and helicopters.

The largest confrontation between the Angolan-Cuban troops and the South African and unitite formations during the entire Angolan conflict was the "Battle of Quito Cuanavale" in 1987-1988. (in South Africa, this operation was codenamed "Modular"). According to official Angolan government data, during this operation, about 1,400 counter-revolutionaries were destroyed, more than 1,380 pieces of artillery and small arms, downed up to 40 aircraft and helicopters of the South African Air Force. The scale of the hostilities is evidenced by the fact that from August 1987 to May 1988, the Angolan and Cuban Air Forces made 2950 sorties from the airfields of Quito Cuanavale and Menonge. About 1,100 of them had to carry out combat missions of delivering missile and bomb strikes against ground forces, during which hundreds of unitite and South African soldiers and officers, as well as dozens of military equipment, were destroyed.

According to South Africa, the South African Mirage F-1AZ and Buccaneer aircraft made about 700 sorties during the operation, dropped 3068 bombs on the positions of the Angolan and Cuban troops: 1658 250-kilogram fragmentation bombs, 872 120-kg fragmentation and 105 120-kg high-explosive.

The "Battle of Quitu Cuanavale" was a turning point in the history of Angola. It marked the beginning of the "divorce" of Cuban and South African troops. After more than 14 months of continuous fighting in the Angolan savannah, the parties, convinced that they could not solve all the problems by military means, began negotiations. And in the end, a decision was made on the phased and simultaneous withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola. An agreement to this effect was signed in New York on December 22, 1988.

But for more than 10 years, a civil war continued in the country. Its main generator was the leader of UNITA Savimbi, who did not want to make concessions to the Angolan government. However, the success of the Armed Forces of Angola in the offensive against UNITA positions in the center of the country during Operation Restoration forced the UNITA detachments to retreat. Parts and units of the Angolan government army (FAA) conducted in 2000-2001. a number of operations to clean up the territory from armed opposition in the provinces of Huambu, Bie, Malanje, Moshiko, North and South Lunda, during which they achieved significant success. Finally, in February 2002, during the operation of the Angolan troops "Kissonde" in the province of Moshiku, not far from the border with Zambia, UNITA leader Savimbi was ambushed and killed. The military confrontation in Angola, which lasted almost thirty years, ended.

HALO OF MYSTERY

War in Angola for most Russian citizens remains largely unknown today. An aura of mystery and mystery is created around the stay of Soviet military personnel there. Most of the Soviet military personnel who visited Angola, to this day, have no records of their stay in Africa in their personal files. It's good if instead of the entry about the "special business trip" there is an inconspicuous stamp with the number of the military unit, behind which the 10th Main Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces was hidden. Many cannot count on the benefits granted to combatants: try, prove your involvement in the events of those years:

The bulk of the Soviet military personnel who visited Angola are officers and ensigns, practitioners in combat use and maintenance of weapons and military equipment, pilots, staff workers, commanders with experience in commanding companies, battalions, regiments and even large formations, as well as military translators. The first group of 40 people, consisting of specialists in combat use and military translators, arrived in Angola immediately after the country's independence on November 11, 1975. She had carte blanche to participate in hostilities: on the way from Moscow, a secret cipher telegram was received, which "allowed Soviet military specialists to take part in hostilities on the side of the MPLA forces and the Cuban troops."

One of the first chief military advisers in Angola was the experienced General I. Ponomarenko, who commanded in the USSR guards army deployed in wartime states. Until now, Colonel General K. Kurochkin, who gained fame among the Angolans and Cubans as "General Konstantin", is warmly remembered in Angola. Having experience of the Great Patriotic War and military operations in Afghanistan, he came to Africa from the post of deputy commander Airborne troops. Colonel General V. Belyaev, who was in 1988-1991, also served in the Airborne Forces. Deputy and then chief military adviser in Angola.

Only during the period of official military cooperation between the USSR and Angola, from 1975 to 1991, about 11 thousand Soviet military personnel visited this African country in order to assist in the construction of the national army, of which 107 were generals and admirals, 7211 officers, more than 3, 5 thousand ensigns, midshipmen, privates, as well as workers and employees of the SA and Navy, not counting family members of Soviet military personnel. In addition, during this period, off the coast of Angola, they carried military service thousands of Soviet military sailors, including marines, who were on board the warships that called at the ports of Angola.

Our servicemen, who wore someone else's uniform and did not have any identity documents with them, often had to live in tents and dugouts, constantly experiencing serious domestic inconveniences and deprivations: lack of water, electricity, proper nutrition and medical care. And often, going on joint combat operations with the Angolans, they took up machine guns and machine guns, sat at the controls of infantry fighting vehicles and levers of tanks, fire control panels for rocket and anti-aircraft installations. They were real military professionals who did a lot to create the Armed Forces of Angola. The fact that the Angolan army, starting from the mid-80s of the 20th century, became practically on an equal footing "to talk" with the most combat-ready army of the African continent at that time - the army of South Africa - is a huge merit of thousands of Soviet officers and generals, in different time working in Angola.

But not all of them were destined to return to their homeland. Some had to give their lives to this African country.

SORRY LIST

It is believed that in the period up to 1991, during the fighting in Angola, 54 Soviet citizens were killed and died, including 45 officers, 5 ensigns, 2 conscripts and two employees. During this period, 10 people were injured, and one Soviet soldier, Ensign Pestretsov, during the South African aggression in August 1981, was captured by South Africa and spent about a year and a half in South African prisons. Only thanks to the painstaking work of the employees of the Soviet Foreign Ministry and secret negotiations with the South African intelligence services, he was released.

However, the figures given are official figures. They do not take into account the intensity of hostilities and the degree of involvement of Soviet advisers and specialists in them, as well as the losses of civilian specialists who died and were captured along with the military - the Angolan war did not spare anyone. It is no secret that many of the wounded and dead in that war were registered as "died of natural causes" or "sick from tropical diseases." Therefore, there is reason to believe that there were much more dead Soviet citizens in Angola at that time. How? This remains to be seen, since the archives on military-political cooperation with Angola are still classified.

Little is said about this, but during the years of the Cold War, the USSR defended its interests not only in the countries of the social bloc, but also in distant Africa. Our military participated in many African conflicts, the largest of which was the civil war in Angola.

unknown war

It was not customary to talk about the fact that the Soviet military fought in Africa for a long time. Moreover, 99% of the citizens of the USSR did not know that there was a Soviet military contingent in distant Angola, Mozambique, Libya, Ethiopia, North and South Yemen, Syria and Egypt. Of course, rumors were heard, but they, not confirmed by official information from the pages of the Pravda newspaper, were treated with restraint, like stories and conjectures.
Meanwhile, only through the line of the 10th Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR from 1975 to 1991, 10,985 generals, officers, ensigns and privates passed through Angola. During the same time, 11,143 Soviet military personnel were sent to Ethiopia. If we also take into account the Soviet military presence in Mozambique, then we can talk about more than 30 thousand Soviet military specialists and privates on African soil.

However, despite such a scale, the soldiers and officers who performed their "international duty" were as if non-existent, they were not given orders and medals, the Soviet press did not write about their exploits. It was as if they did not exist for official statistics. As a rule, the military cards of participants in African wars did not contain any records of business trips to the African continent, but simply an inconspicuous stamp with a unit number, behind which the 10th Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR was hidden. This state of affairs was well reflected in his poem by the military translator Alexander Polivin, who wrote during the battles for the city of Cuitu-Cuanavale

First soldiers

What did they fight for?

During the years of the Cold War, our country could not afford to lose Angola, it was necessary to help the new leadership of the country by all means, to make the country a model African socialist state, oriented in its political tasks to the Soviet Union. In terms of trade relations, Angola was of little interest to the USSR, the export areas of the countries were similar: timber, oil and diamonds. It was a war for political influence.

Fidel Castro once said succinctly about the significance of Soviet assistance: "Angola would have no prospects without the political and logistical assistance of the USSR."

How and in what did they fight?

However, as Sergey Kolomnin, a participant in that war, recalls, weapons were still not enough. However, the opposing side also lacked it. Most of all, of course, there were Kalashnikov assault rifles, both Soviet and foreign (Romanian, Chinese and Yugoslav) assembly. There were also Portuguese Zh-3 rifles left over from colonial times. The principle of “what we can help with” was manifested in the supply to Angola of the reliable, but somewhat outdated by that time, PPD, PPSh and Degtyarev machine guns that had remained since the Great Patriotic War.

The uniform of the Soviet military in Angola was without insignia, at first it was customary to wear the Cuban uniform, the so-called "verde olivo". It was not very comfortable in the hot African climate, but the military, as a rule, does not choose their wardrobe. Soviet soldiers had to resort to army ingenuity, to order lighter uniforms from tailors. To make changes to the ammunition at the official level, to add insignia to it and change the material, Lieutenant General Petrovsky once conceived, but his proposals were met with hostility by the command. People were dying on the Angolan fronts, and it was considered frivolous to deal with issues of form in such conditions.

Change of course

Angola, as well as Lebanon and other African countries, we missed. Now we can talk about it. When the USSR collapsed and the political course changed in the country, our military contingent was withdrawn from Africa. A holy place, as you know, is never empty. The President of the same Angola, Dus Santos (who, by the way, graduated from Baku University and is married to a Russian) had to look for new allies. And, not surprisingly, they were the United States.

Soviet Africa turned out to be an unfulfilled dream, and several hundred Soviet military men who had been sent there to fulfill their "international duty" would never return.

Civil War in Angola armed conflict between three rival factions: MPLA, FNLA and UNITA. Continued during 1975 - March 30, 2002 Participants: MPLA, FNLA and UNITA. It ended with the victory of the MPLA.

After the armed forces of the MPLA, on the eve of the declaration of independence, established control over Luanda, the failure of the Alvor agreements on coalition government. Three Angolan movements - MPLA, FNLA, UNITA - turned to their external allies for help.

As a result, already on September 25, 1975, Zairian troops entered the territory of Angola from the north: President Mobutu Sese Seko assisted the FNLA and his relative, Holden Roberto.

Since the Marxist MPLA collaborated with SWAPO, on October 14, 1975, the South African army invaded Angola from the south, supporting UNITA, with the aim of protecting their occupation regime in Namibia.

At the same time, few but active detachments of the Portuguese Liberation Army (ELP) crossed the Angolan border from the territory of Namibia, acting on the side of forces hostile to the MPLA. Their target was Luanda.

In this situation, MPLA chairman Agostinho Neto turned to the USSR and Cuba for help. Cuban leader Fidel Castro reacted immediately by sending volunteer Cuban detachments to help the MPLA in Angola. The arrival of Cuban military specialists in Angola enabled the MPLA to as soon as possible form 16 infantry battalions and 25 anti-aircraft and mortar batteries of the armed forces of the People's Republic of Angola (PRA). Until the end of 1975, the USSR sent about 200 military specialists to help the MPLA, and they also arrived on the Angolan coast warships Navy of the USSR. The USSR and its allies delivered the MPLA a large number of various weapons.

Cuban and Soviet support provided the MPLA with a significant military advantage over the opposing FNLA formations. Holden Roberto's troops were manned by poorly trained Bakongo soldiers and equipped with mostly obsolete Chinese weapons. The most combat-ready unit of the FNLA was a detachment of mercenaries recruited in Western Europe, but it was not numerous and did not have heavy weapons.

On the night of November 10-11, 1975, the troops of the FNLA and Zaire suffered a decisive defeat in the battle of Quifangondo. On November 11, 1975, the independence of Angola was proclaimed under the rule of the MPLA.

On November 12, 1975, a convoy of South African Zulu troops went on the offensive. In 20 days, South African troops advanced more than 700 km deep into Angolan territory. However, already on November 17, 1975, the MPLA troops, with the support of the Cubans, managed to stop the South African armored column at the bridge over the Keve River, north of the city Gangula. A few days later, MPLA troops launched an offensive in the Porto Ambain area. By December 5, 1975, the combined forces of FAPLA and Cuban volunteers pushed back opponents to the north and south of the capital by 100 km.

January 6, 1976 Carmona (Uizhi) - the main base of the FNLA in the north of Angola - passed into the hands of the MPLA. A week later, the FNLA troops, turning into a stampede, left the territory of Angola. The MPLA was able to transfer its forces to the south. Strong fighting unfolded in the areas of Vila Luso and Teixeira de Sauza. Savimbi was forced to announce UNITA's transition to guerrilla warfare.

At the beginning of February 1976 fighting on the northern front they were already in the border zone with Zaire. On February 8, 1976, MPLA fighters occupied the important strategic city of Santo Antoño do Zayri, and the next day - already on southbound- entered the city of Huambo (Nova Lizhboa). Developing success, the MPLA detachments over the next days took the port cities of Benguela, Lobita and Sa da Bandeira. With the capture of the city of Pedro da Feitis on February 18, 1976, the MPLA forces established control over the northern border of the country.

By the end of March 1976, the armed forces of the NRA, with the direct support of the 15,000th contingent of Cuban volunteers and the help of Soviet military specialists, managed to oust the troops of South Africa and Zaire from the territory of Angola. The war was continued by the UNITA movement, led by Jonas Savimbi, who managed to quickly transform into a partisan army.

The Angolan authorities recorded from January to June 1980 529 cases of violation of the Angolan border armed forces SOUTH AFRICA.

In August 1981, motorized columns of South Africa numbering 11 thousand people, with the support of heavy artillery, aircraft and helicopters invaded the Angolan province of Kunene, advancing in some areas by 150-200 km. But in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Cahama, they were blocked by the FAPLA detachments (People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola). At the end of the summer of 1982, 4 motorized infantry brigades, 50 aircraft and 30 helicopters were additionally deployed here. During this period, an attempt was made to capture settlements Kuvelay, Letala. At the end of 1982, the Angolan and South African governments began negotiations on a ceasefire, but on January 31, 1983, units of the South African army penetrated into the province of Benguela and blew up a hydroelectric power station, which led to a new round of escalation of the conflict. Only in March 1984 did the parties sign a ceasefire agreement in Lusaka. But the war with UNITA continued.

In the summer - autumn of 1987, another large-scale FAPLA offensive failed, the purpose of which was to finally put an end to the UNITA partisans. In November 1987, UNITA troops attacked the government garrison at Cuito Cuanavale. Cuban units came to the aid of government troops, and then the South African army intervened in the battle. Fighting continued until August 5, 1988, when a ceasefire agreement was reached in Geneva with the South African government. The South Africans and UNITA could not dislodge the government troops. Savimbi did not recognize the decisions of the peace agreement and continued the war.

On June 31, 1991, the Lisbon Peace Accords were concluded between the MPLA and UNITA on holding free elections. Elections were held in the autumn of 1992, and the victory of the MPLA was announced. Savimbi refused to admit defeat and demanded a second vote. The Halloween massacre organized by the MPLA killed tens of thousands of people, mostly members of UNITA, but also of the FNLA. After that, hostilities resumed with renewed vigor.

Most strong fights took place in the province of Huambo. Intense fighting continued until mid-1994. A new peace agreement was concluded in Lusaka, which was soon thwarted by both sides. A massive offensive by government troops unfolded in 1998-1999. By the beginning of 2000, the main strongholds of UNITA were taken by government forces, including the cities of Bailundo (the political capital of the opposition) and Jamba (the main military base).

In February 2002, Georges Savimbi was killed in a shootout with government troops near the town of Lucusse, in the eastern province of Moxico. His successor António Dembo announced the continuation armed struggle, but soon died from wounds received in the same battle where Savimbi died. The leadership of UNITA passed to Paulo Lukamba, who was a supporter of a compromise with the government. On March 30, 2002, a ceasefire was concluded in Luena. UNITA was legalized and became the parliamentary opposition party headed by Isaiah Samakuva.

One of the conditions for peace, the UNITA group demanded the reburial of the embalmed body of Agoshtinho Neto from the mausoleum. The end of hostilities in Angola coincides with the end of the Second Congolese War, before which the forces of the DRC and Angola mutually supported each other, as opposed to the alliance of the former authorities of Zaire and UNITA (previously also supported by the United States and South Africa).

One of the grave consequences of the war, complicating the peaceful development of Angola, is anti-personnel mines used uncontrollably by all parties to the conflict.