Angolan FAPLA soldiers and Soviet military advisers with 30 mm AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers during the civil war.

Vehicle pics were taken at the Lomba River battle site

Cuban soldier in Angola photographed by Ernesto Fernandez Nogueras, 1982.

MiG-23 pilot Lino Vieras (left) and a Cuban intelligence officer next to a MiG-23ML at Huambo in April 1986. An R-24T missile is loaded on the jet’s left shoulder pylon

Impala flypast at AFB Mpacha

A group of Cuban pilots in Angola. Alberto Ley Rivas is crouching in the front row furthest right, wearing a t-shirt. Fourth from the right at the back is Danasio Valdés, shot down by SAAF Mirages in a MiG-21 in 1981

Cuban pilot Alberto Ley, after a mission in a Mig 23, 1987

Cuban ground personnel with some of the Soviet technicians that helped assemble the first fighter jets destined for Angola, in front of the first MiG-15UTI of the FAPA/DAA (serial C21), in early 1976

Taken at Luanda on 25 January 1976, during celebrations associated with the establishment of the FAPA/DAA, this photograph shows a row of (Cuban-manned) MiG-17Fs, plus two C-47 transports left behind by the Portuguese

Operation Savannah: 22x Eland 90 armoured cars began a 2,400 km 6 day trek from Bloemfontein #SouthAfrica to Ondangwa in SW Africa where they would airlifted into the fight in #Angola 9 October 1975

A column of Eland armored cars passing by a destroyed Angolan T-54 tank during Operation Askari. 1984

Cuban troops in Angola

A Russian TU-95RT strategic bomber at Luanda airport on an unspecified date between 1976 and 1977

A rarely seen photograph of Cuban pilots Manuel Rojas García (Lieutenant Colonel) and Manuel Quesada Aguilar (Captain), prisoners of Savimbi, whose MIG-21UM was shot down on October 28, 1987, by UNITA’s MANPAD (manual anti-aircraft missile) in the Luena area. The photo was taken on October 31 of the same year at a political rally in Jamba.

Cuban ground crew prepare Angolan MiG-21bis C-315 for its next sortie at Menongue

Soviet Military Interpreter Oleg Gritsuk of the 13th FAPLA Brigade at the end of 1987 at Cuito Cuanavale

Soviet specialist of the FAPLA anti-aircraft missile brigade “Kvadrat” Vladimir Volodin in Cuito Cuanavale. 1984

From right to left: N. V. Kurushkin, Sam NuJoma, Peter Nanyemba
and SWAPO functionaries observe the training of PLAN fighters, 1982, Lubango. Photo from the archive of N. V. Kurushkin

SWAPO leadership and Soviet military advisers watch a PLAN special forces team training. In the center Sam Nujoma and the SAF team leader at SVS at SWAPO Colonel Boris Dmitrievich Perebillo. On the right is Captain Valery Nikolaevich Skvortsov, who was engaged in training special forces, on the left is a specialist in the tactics of partisan…Read More

Review of the PLAN motorized infantry brigade at the T. Haineko Training Center. 1985. Photo from the archive of V. Stryukov

Training of a PLAN reconnaissance group. In the center F.M. Zulkarneev, Jumbo training ground, Lubango, 1985 Photo from F. Zulkarneev’s archive

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.

The wreckage of the fuselage of the South African Air Force Impala attack aircraft, shot down by PLAN air defense fighters in southern Angola, was transported to the T. Haineko Training Center. In the center is Colonel V. A. Skurydin, Advisor to the Chief Military Prosecutor of PLAN. 1985. Photo from the archive of A. Marchenko.

Before being sent to the front. Ceremonial formation of the PLAN brigade trained at the Tobias Haineko Training Center. Lubango region, 1979. Photo from the archive of I. Zherlitsyn.

Cuban tank crew in Angola.

Soviet special forces (Spetsnaz) in Angola, 1985.

A Soviet military specialist trains Angolan communists in hand-to-hand combat techniques. War in Angola, the 1970s

Soviet advisor Tatyana Davydova poses with an Angolan soldier in Angola, late 1980’s.

A front-line ‘homemade’ product created by the Cubans for convoy escort

Soviet advisors on the road between Menongue and Cuito Cuanavale with personnel on a BTR-60 PB

This T-34-85 is one of several that were embedded as fixed defence points at Cuito Cuanavale (Soviet Advisors)

Another image taken on the road between Menongue and Cuito Cuanavale with personnel on a BTR 60PB. The Union of Veterans of Angola (UVA) was established in Moscow in 2004 to preserve the memory of those that served in Angola

Adviser to the chief of artillery of the 10th Inf Brigade under the command of Y Yatsun, advisor to the commander of the 10th Inf Brigade under the command of V Sagatchko, advisor to the chief of air defence of the 8th Inf Brigade under the command of V Romanov. In the background is a destroyed FAPLA fuel truck ambushed by UNITA

Soviet military advisors (A Shishov on left) on the ‘road of death’ from Menongue to Cuito Cuanavale

The number of Soviet military combat personnel in Angola was small, a few hundred at any one time. They acted in the capacity of military advisors and in training roles, and also in providing military communications

Soviet military advisors of the Angolan Army’s 25th brigade in the vicinity of Cuito Cuanavale

Soviet military adviser Major V Gavrilov with a damaged BMP-1 after fighting in the province of Moshiko

Cuban and Soviet officers confer with each other in Angola sometime during 1985.

Angolan, Soviet and Cuban soldiers pose for a photograph near Cuito Cuanavale in April 1988.

This speech by the late Plan Commander Peter Nanyemba during the struggle will open your eyes on exactly how the Swapo revolution was betrayed. 34 years later, we still don’t have the land and Swapo is fighting IPC on who should be friends with European Land Owners.