Date: 03/15/22
Author: Kent Moors, Ph.D.
I am toughening up (mentally and emotionally) for some very heavy Classified Intelligence Brief Spy Tale entries in which I intend to hang out some “dirty laundry,” name culprits, and expose shortcomings (including my own) from less savory episodes that transpired during my decades-long intelligence career. There are some legal and personal impediments at the moment and it is going to take a bit of soul searching to write these installments.
In large measure, I have realized this series has been leading up to this. For what it is worth, “mother” will not prevent their publication, provided I follow the agreement we ironed out several months ago. Among other matters, that includes my avoiding any reference to ongoing or still classified operations, and not providing any details on the two most important elements in tradecraft –sources and methods. For good measure, I have agreed to use pseudonyms for those still living.
But this will still be difficult.
In the interim, this week’s tale results from an email I received from Moscow a while back (when reception was easier than it is now following Big Brother’s clampdown on traffic between Russia and the civilized world following the invasion).
It was more an announcement than anything else that one Sergei Baranov had died. As an aside, this is neither the Ukrainian ice dancing champion nor the Ukrainian volleyball star. Rather, this fellow was a Soviet “grunt” who moved in another direction.
The message was from a relative of his I did not know. For that matter, I had not heard from Sergei in years. Yet he was one of those people you remember in an unsettling way, given what I am about to relate.
His efforts will ring solid these days. There will need to be those who take up what he did in an earlier war as the damaged young men return from Putin’s ill-advised assault on Ukraine.
I ran into Sergei for the first time in February 1994, while I was back in Moscow on a recuring faculty appointment at an Institute of the Soviet/Russian Academy of Sciences. I first discussed this and the details surrounding it in “Setting the Stage in Moscow,” Classified Intelligence Brief, May 12, 2001, followed by a number of CIB Spy Tales detailing what then happened.
At the time of our first meeting, Moscow was marking the fifth anniversary of Soviet troops leaving Afghanistan. But for Sergei, a former sergeant of the crack 107th Guards Air Assault (“Cherkassy”) Division – their equivalent to the US 101st Airborne – it was a bittersweet commemoration.
Sergei lost both his naivete and a leg in that war. The first went shortly after his arrival. The second was blown off during the bloody fight for the Salang Pass.
The Soviet army built a single tunnel through the mountain pass to access the Afghan interior. That tunnel ended up being a key choke point in their supply lines, a source of frequent concerns about Mujahedeen ambushes (upon occasion quite justified), and among the most dangerous tunnels in the world.
Upon his return to Moscow, he became involved in several movements challenging the official view of the Afghan involvement. This would occasionally result in militia (local police) detentions, interruptions in his paltry military disability pension, and stern lectures from relatives.
What began as a protest became a crusade once troops came home. The last soldiers crossed “Friendship Bridge” on February 15, 1989.
By the summer of 1989, Sergei was fighting a lonely battle against indifference and apathy. Having no patience with bureaucrats or apologists, he experienced much frustration in a system which breeds too much of both.
From his damp basement apartment in a working area of Moscow, he compiled information on missing soldiers. The government provided no support and preferred that he would simply go away.
Somehow, he would beg, borrow, or steal supplies. Obtaining use of telephones from other veterans (his own was mysteriously put out of service) he contacted families, piecing together information about those who had simply disappeared from army rolls. He managed to pay for his postage bills by taking part-time jobs, since his pension hardly kept up with the inflation rate.
Discouraging publicity, he turned down newspaper interviews, television interest, even an offer of help from a French veterans group. He was on a very private journey that seemed almost in search of personal salvation. Despite his handicap, or perhaps because of it, Sergei became a driven man.
A common friend introduced us. I found his living room a mountain range of papers and files, infrequently interrupted by small bare spots showing a worn-out rug. I had to place myself strategically in one of these “oases” to avoid causing an avalanche. One wall had a map of Afghanistan, another had hundreds of snapshots sent from all over Russia by those looking for loved ones.
Sergei did not smile and greeted me without much expression. It was sometime before he spoke comfortably. His primary problem when I arrived was combatting figures released by the Defense Ministry.
“They claim a thousand Soviet prisoners are held by the dukhs [an unflattering term for the Afghans] but there are probably five times that many,” he declared. “The miliary high command have never admitted to the number of those simply missing.”
Such POW/MIA were familiar enough to Americans after Vietnam, but they remained something quite unknown for Russians. Unlike Nam, the Afghan war was not covered by Soviet “network news.” There were no real reports from the front, no indication of the dead and wounded, no platforms for political opposition movements or dissent.
Moscow’s initial line abut responding to a call for help from “a socialist brother nation” started wearing thin once the coffins began arriving. The first registering protest were mothers. The second were the injured veterans themselves. They met resistance at every turn because the government attempted to solve its problem by simply lying to its people.
Sergei could almost effortlessly pull statements and news clippings from his living room “mountain range” to prove his point. Soldiers were being announced as having died “in training,” “during exercises,” “in an incident on leave,” only to show up later on a list of the missing. Sergei documented each case, including a confirmation from family or fellow soldiers, and then cross-listed with an army statement or denial of an information request.
The official figures of 3,200 missing and 11,400 dead were far too low, he asserted. His estimates are closer to 10,000 unaccounted for and over 16,000 dead. “But it will be impossible to tell for certain,” he admitted.
Pointing to the merging and renumbering of Soviet army detachments that began in 1982, Sergei noted that that these changes made it more difficult to verify reliable casualty and MIA figures.
“We know that there were over 600,000 soldiers sent there and, at its height, our army had over 120,000 fighting at one time, but it is increasingly difficult to identify specific personnel,” he added.
The letters, which still arrived daily, attested to a continuing lack of confidence in the government’s figures. Sergei claimed that he had already heard from over 5,000 families. “Just these,” he reminded me, “exceed the total of imprisoned and missing the military command admit to.”
I asked him what he intended to do with the information. Will he publish it? Perhaps, he answered. I asked him when. He merely muttered “When it is finished.” But we both knew there would be no finish. That was not the point of it all.
It takes time to heal wounds, especially so when they are of the spirit. Having become disillusioned about country and mission in one war, he was now fighting another. Perhaps this time the objectives were clearer. Questions of self-respect and dignity cannot be evaded forever. Sometimes one can only find the worth of life in the helping of others. Sergei, at least, seemed to have learned that lesson.
I asked him if I could take his picture. He refused. “This is not about me,” Sergei answered.
As the years passed, I saw him again upon my returns to Moscow. His physical condition deteriorated but his crusade never did.
“You test the mettle of a soldier by how he defends those who went with him into battle,” Sergei remarked on one occasion. On another of our encounters, I somewhat playfully said that he was the toughest ryadovoy I ever met. The word meant “ranker” in Soviet military slang, one of those nameless faces that put themselves in harm’s way or become cannon fodder to defend “ Mother Russia.”
For the only time in our meetings, he broke into an ear-to-ear grin. “Perhaps I should put that on my headstone,” he said. At some point, I will find out where they buried him and see if he actually did.
Dr. Kent Moors
This is an installment of Classified Intelligence Brief, your guide to what’s really happening behind the headlines… and how to profit from it. Dr. Kent Moors served the United States for 30 years as one of the most highly decorated intelligence operatives alive today (including THREE Presidential commendations).
After moving through the inner circles of royalty, oligarchs, billionaires, and the uber-rich, he discovered some of the most important secrets regarding finance, geo-politics, and business. As a result, he built one of the most impressive rolodexes in the world. His insights and network of contacts took him from a Vietnam veteran to becoming one of the globe’s most sought after consultants, with clients including six of the largest energy companies and the United States government.
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