OTTAWA, Nov. 22,Reuter, Canada: Five Soviet army soldiers who deserted during the war in Afghanistan have ‘been spirited out of that Country by the Canadian officials and are in Canada, the government said today.
The five men, who were held prisoner by Afghan Resistance Fighters for more than three years, left Pakistan Thursday and are now being debriefed by Canadian authorities, an external affairs department spokesman said.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said the soldiers were “safe and sound” at a Canadian military base and said no further information on the affair would be released until next week.
The external affairs department spokesman said government officials were reluctant to disclose further details until representatives of the Soviet embassy in Ottawa have been informed as to why the men are in Canada, It is expected Canada will tell the Soviets the ‘operation was undertaken for humanitarian reasons, he said.
The United States and Britain are the only other Western countries that have taken Soviet army defectors out of Afghanistan,
The five soldiers, said to be in ‘good health, have been the object. of a Canadian rescue effort July, 1984, when they were promised political asylum after being con {acted through a government inter mediary, the spokesman said,
The five were kept alive by Afghan rebels in the hope they ‘would one day reveal information in the West about the brutality of the Soviet invasion of Afghanis tan, government officials said.
The affair became public last April when a Canadian newspaper reporters entered Afghanistan and interviewed the five. Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative Government was criticized at the time for failing to rescue the soldiers after promising 18 months before to grant them asylum.
The five have been identified as Igo Kovalchuk, 26, Nikolai Golovin, 23, Sergei Busov, 22, ‘Vadim Plotnikov, 21, and Valadislay Naumov, 24.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 28, 1986
