When the Soviet military occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, Andrey Avetisyan served as a young diplomat in Kabul who witnessed a war that ultimately ended with a humiliating Soviet withdrawal.
Today, he is back in Kabul, this time as the Russian ambassador. And his advice to the United States is not to pull out of Afghanistan precipitously.
NPR Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, who is reporting from Afghanistan this month, sat down with Avetisyan and asked him about the U.S.-Soviet rivalry in the 1960s, when the superpowers were competing to help develop a poor — but peaceful — Afghanistan.
