Caravan Catcher - Vaiva Bezhan

The Soviet Army’s ‘Caravan Catcher’ In Afghanistan

Sergey Pivovarov, a paratrooper in the Soviet army in the 1980s, is nicknamed the “caravan catcher.” During the war in Afghanistan, he carried out dozens of successful mission against mujahidin caravans entering southern Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan.

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The Soviet Army’s ‘Caravan Catcher’ In AfghanistanSergey Pivovarov, a paratrooper in the Soviet army in the 1980s, is nicknamed the “caravan catcher.” During the war in Afghanistan, he carried out dozens of successful...

Many Russians long to forget the Soviet war in Afghanistan, a disastrous, decade-long occupation that killed around 15,000 Soviet soldiers and left more than one million Afghansdead.But not Sergey Pivovarov, a former war...

Pivovarov says his unit carried out dozens of successful missions in the deserts of southern Afghanistan, along the border with Iran and Pakistan. His unit’s success earned Pivovarov the nickname, “Caravan Catcher.”“Most of the missions...

Pivovarov’s wife shows us the letters her husband sent her while he was deployed in Afghanistan. She kept all 102 letters. She reads out the first in which Pivovarov tells her that he...