No Agenda News: '$27.5 Trillion Man' Leo Wanta: In His Own Words
&Nbsp; Because they were a pain and he did not trust them at all. He could not depend on anyone there and there were a lot of old wounds. We have therefore decided, with William French Smith and some other types, how we could find a mission destabilze the USSR could not buy anything. That's why you had and the GRU, and anyone and everyone who tried to make quick money, collect all the rubles. So, we received all the rubles. They wrote stories about it in major magazines and newspapers, that we were idiots to buy all these Soviet rubles.So more people are coming here all the time and we negotiate between 18 and 28 cents a ruble. We pay them outside the Soviet Union in all major banks, and Hungarian banks. We had 109 accounts. If you got the rubles credited to our account, we will give you the currency of your choice. We thus here we are. We are all in Vienna. I speak very little German, but I'm here. We started to meet a number of people within the Soviet bloc and Hungary, and Iran, Iraq, etc., etc.. And they are, shall we say, in an economic pinch because the USSR had no food, no meat, nothing, no fuel.Because no one would accept the ruble outside the country. We therefore used Brinks Holland, and began to buy rubles. No purchase, exchange words, you can not buy foreign currency, but you can exchange currency. Something for something.
Source: No Agenda News: '$27.5 Trillion Man' Leo Wanta: In His Own Words
How much did the invasion and subsequent attempt to subvert the Mujahideen cost the USSR?
Oct 05, 2008 by William R | Posted in History
I am aware that this was part of the Cold War (we helped the Mujaheddin as payback for aiding NVA by the Communist).
I have numbers from 10,000 to 15,000 Russian Soldiers dead (how about wounded?) AND 2 million + Afghans) BUT how about Rubles? Where can I get an objective number on that? Thanks (I see U.S. heading into another humbling experience in Afghanistan 'a la' Vietnam)
Sorry I couldn't find anything really on how many rubles the war cost the USSR. But this site said it was 6 million a year.
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7063-4 .cfm
They also have a list on wikipedia and casualties and stuff for you to double check
Between December 25, 1979 and February 15, 1989 a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000-104,000 force at one time ), 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops and police. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar or manual jobs.
The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier and internal security troops came to 14,453. Soviet Army formations, units and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28 and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. During this period 417 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 of these were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries.
There were 469,685 sick and wounded, of whom 53,753 or 11.44 percent, were wounded, injured or sustained concussion and 415,932 (88.56 percent) fell sick. A high proportion of casualties were those who fell ill. This was because of local climatic and sanitary conditions, which were such that acute infections spread rapidly among the troops. There were 115,308 cases of infectious hepatitis, 31,080 of typhoid fever and 140,665 of other diseases. Of the 11,654 who were discharged from the army after being wounded, maimed or contracting serious diseases, 92 percent, or 10,751 men were left disabled.[56]
After the war ended, the Soviet Union were published figures of dead Soviet soldiers: Total - 13 836 people, on average - 1 537 people a year. According to updated figures, all in the war Soviet army lost 14 427, the KGB - 576, MIA - 28 people dead and missing
Material losses were as follows:
* 118 aircraft
* 333 helicopters
* 147 tanks
* 1,314 IFV/APCs
* 433 artillery guns and mortars
* 1,138 radio sets and command vehicles
* 510 engineering vehicles
* 11,369 trucks and petrol tankers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_ in_Afghanistan
ALEX | Oct 05, 2008
The State Bank of the USSR also issued new 
Skolkovo: Russia's Emerging Silicon ValleyBetween 1999 and 2004, the Russian economy grew 48%, the value of the ruble completely recovered, wages increased and unemployment declined to 6.8%.
