The day the Soviets invaded Afghanistan – level 2

25-12-1979

On December 25, 1979, three hundred Soviet planes with 30,000 soldiers flew to Afghanistan. They landed at Kabul Airport. The Soviet army immediately began to occupy the city. In the next days, tanks and other Soviet soldiers entered Afghanistan from the north.

In the first few days of the Soviet invasion, the President of Afghanistan was killed, and a pro-Soviet leader took his place. The Soviets occupied Afghanistan because they wanted a pro-Soviet government there.

Many local people didn’t like the invasion and they started to fight the Soviets. They were fighting in the mountains. The Soviet army couldn’t beat them. There were two reasons for that. One was the difficult terrain in the mountains, and the second reason was financial support from the United States to the local people.

The conflict was nine years long and it cost the Soviets a lot of money. The Soviets finally decided to stop fighting and they left Afghanistan on February 15, 1989.

Difficult words: Soviet (from the Soviet Union), occupy (to enter a place and control it by the army), invasion (the arrival in a place which you want to control by force), terrain (a type of land), conflict (a fight).

What were the reasons for the Soviet Union's decision to invade Afghanistan?

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