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.