Synopsis:

Peter Kosminsky's documentary follows the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Referred to as 'Russia's Vietnam', more than a million people died during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and this film drives home the pointless futility of war through the portrayal of the daily business of packing and leaving and the soldier's frustrations at a conflict which was ultimately fought for nothing. What is most telling in the telling examination of what might be called 'The Afghanistan Syndrome', is the sense of the imminent crumbling of the Soviet Union.