The accidental Afghan war veteran

Thirty years ago, on 24 December 1979, the Soviet Union started deploying troops in Afghanistan. But some of those who were sent had no military training at all, as Katia Moskvitch from the BBC's Russian Service found out.

Just days before the invasion, eight mountaineers from what was then the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan were getting ready to fly to neighbouring Tajikistan for a routine rescue operation in the Pamir Mountains.

They were further surprised when the pilots announced they were heading for Kabul.

They did not yet know about the imminent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - the Kremlin announced it the next day. But at the very moment when the plane touched the runaway, Soviet special forces were preparing to take over the then Afghan President Hafizullah Amin's Tajbeg palace.

It was the start of a nine-year war in which at least a million Afghans and more than 14,000 Soviet soldiers died.

On the ground, the Soviet military finally explained to the mountaineers the true nature of their mission.

A few days earlier, a military plane full of Soviet soldiers had crashed in the Hindu Kush mountains, some 60km (38 miles) from Kabul. On board, there was a black leather briefcase with some top-secret documents - and it had to be retrieved.