Advisor and his sub-adviser. Senior of the SAF group of the SWAPO training center named after Tobias Haineko Colonel Ivan Grigorievich Zherlitsyn and the head of this training center, PLAN commander Joshua. Lubango, 1979. Photo from the archive of I. Zherlitsyn

M. I. Konovalenko with his subordinates in the ANC MK “Kakulama” camp. From left to right: military topography specialist, mine and explosives specialist, group senior, air defense specialist (Strela-2M), artillery systems specialist (Grad-P, mortars), hand-to-hand combat instructor. Angola, 1987. Photo from M. Konovalenko’s archive

Arrival at the airport of Malanje for the celebration of the
75th anniversary of the ANC of ANC President Oliver Tambo
(right in the center). On the left is the provincial commissioner
of Malanje (governor of the province), member of the Politburo
MPLA-PT Colonel João Ernesto dos Santos “Liberdade”. In the group of accompanying persons is the…Read More

At the Kakulama camp. M. I. Konovalenko (left) and his subordinates: John Nkadimeng, member of the ANC National Executive Committee and Secretary General of SACTU, Godfrey Ngwenya, commander of the MK forces in Angola from 1983 to 1989 and future Commander-in-Chief (since 2005) of the SADF, Hagger McBerry, who since 1997, with the rank of…Read More

Soviet military specialists at the Kakulama camp with female ANC MK fighters from the camp’s honor guard platoon. 1986. Photo from the archive of M. Konovalenko.

Soviet specialists with the ANC before leaving for the Umkhonto we Sizwe training camp “Kakulama”: military intelligence specialist Nikolai Ivanovich Pirch, specialist in materiel and combat use of small arms Igor Mikhailovich Sheptun, specialist in fire training Kalizhan Kuanyshbaevich Alzhanov, military translators Vitaly Dmitrievich Svetlyshev…Read More

Inspection at the Tobias Haineko Training Center. To the right of SWAPO Defense Minister Peter Nanyemba is the senior of the first group of Soviet military specialists at SWAPO in Angola, Colonel Yuri Sergeevich Zaputryaev, and translator Mikhail Petrovich Suknov. On the far left in the photo is Lieutenant Alexander Sergeevich Kuryanov. 1977.…Read More

Advisor to the PLAN commander in 1979–1983, Colonel Nikolai Vasilyevich Kurushkin, greets fighters from one of the African NODs, Angola, 1980s. Photo from N. Kurushkin’s archive.

A firearms training session at the Jumbo training center shooting range. In the center is military interpreter Lieutenant Ferid Munirovich Zulkarneev. Soviet specialists at the training center often assigned trained interpreters to conduct some of the training themselves. Among the SWAPO fighters, sitting on the right, is adviser Lieutenant…Read More

At the Tobias Haineko Training Center. In the center is Colonel Ivan Grigorievich Zherlitsyn, on the right is PLAN leadership member Comrade Ushona, Lubango, 1979. Photo from the archive of I. Zherlitsyn.