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