By 1988, there was not a single province in Afghanistan that was under one hundred percent control of the dushmans. The Soviet army was everywhere.
The most controversial point was the border town of Khost, where the then Afghan opposition decided to create another government outside the control of the Soviet Union and start destabilizing the country again.
The Afghan opposition was called Afghan only nominally - and although it consisted mostly of Afghans, the main control over the planning of its "activities" was carried out by Pakistani and American CIA advisers.
The value of the settlement of Khost is that through it it was possible to penetrate the territory of Afghanistan, practically without any effort.
As a result of a carefully planned operation, the dushmans managed to block the ground approaches to Khost, however, the air supply of the border territory was not disrupted, so the operation was not successful immediately.
After a significant break, in 1987, the command of the 40th Army of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union developed an operation to unblock and clear the settlement of Khost in order to take the strategic point under absolute control.
The operation "Magistral" was carried out by the forces of the Soviet army quite quickly: the groups of dushmans were thrown back over the Jadran ridge and the highway that served the border guards of "dear life" was liberated.
Located at the dominant height of 3234, Senior Lieutenant Gagarin's platoon dug in and took up a position, taking control of a significant section of strategically important territory.
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At 15:00 local time, Afghan and Pakistani forces began a massive shelling of Hill 3234, where 39 paratroopers of the Soviet Army held positions.
Viktor Gagarin, the immediate commander of the third platoon of the 9th company, organized the defense of the dominant height in such a way that in his first attack the enemy lost up to 40 people killed.
While the defending Soviet paratroopers had only one wounded - junior sergeant Borisov.
The paratroopers received a short respite until 17 hours 35 minutes local time: it was then that the second attack of the height began, which the opponents carried out from a different direction.
However, the enemy's cunning calculation failed this time - on the other hand, the attack was repulsed by a platoon of senior lieutenant Rozhkov.
After almost an hour of fierce fighting, the spooks retreated.
The day was already ending and the first reinforcements came to the third platoon: the same ninth company, about which so much talk. Starley Sergei Rozhkov commanded her. And at night the scouts under the command of Senior Lieutenant Smirnov also approached the position.
Immediately after the arrival of reinforcements, at about 1 am local time, the most brutal and massive attack of the enemy began: the clash was so strong that the Mujahideen managed to approach a distance of 30-40 meters.
Such a short distance turned out to be critical for the position of the landing force and scouts - they began to simply throw grenades at the soldiers of the Soviet army. However, despite the seemingly one hundred percent defeat, the paratroopers and scouts succeeded this time in pushing the enemy back from their positions.
Despite the tenfold superiority in numbers, the factor of surprise, and 12 violent attacks from various directions, the dushmans never managed to take the height.
In some areas, they managed to get close to the positions of the paratroopers at a grenade throw distance. But even these furious jerks did not bring the desired result.
The battle, which did not subside until four in the morning, was accompanied by so many mines and RPG shots fired by the mujahideen that it seemed that the defeat of the paratroopers was inevitable.
However, the reconnaissance platoon that came to the rescue almost immediately entered the battle and finally destroyed all the mujahideen's chances to capture the strategic height. At the time of the approach of the support forces, 5 people remained in the ranks of the ninth company.
Having lost 6 people killed and about 30 more wounded, the Soviet landing company still did not surrender its positions.
The beaten, wounded, barely alive and gray-haired during the battle fighters completed their task - the height near the settlement of Khost was held.