60th anniversary of the USSR". On 28 June 1945, the division was awarded the Order of Kutuzov of II degree. In 1946 the division relocated to the Turkestan Military District. From the time of its reassignment to the 53rd Guards MRD, it was based at Kushka, Mary Oblast in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. The division had the Military Unit Number (V/Ch) 11904 until the invasion of Afghanistan (December, 1979) upon which the V/Ch changed to 51852. Afghanistan War On the night of 27 December, from Kushka, the 5th GMRD entered Afghanistan bound for Herat and Shindand. A battalion of the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade had taken control of the Rabat Mirza pass on 26 December, between Kushkov and Herat. On December 26 at 7:20pm, the Commander of the 5th GMRD, Major-General Yuri Shatalin, gave orders to cross the Afghanistan border. The division was pulled out of the Kushka, Tahta-Bazaar, and Iolotan. At a set time one of the 5th GMRD units came out at the juncture near the towns: - Herat, Shindand, Kandahar, the division headquarters was located under the Shindand. The first casualties amounted to 2 people. The division commander, and future Commander in Chief of the Russian Internal Troops, Colonel-General Yuri Shatalin recalls: "It happened at dawn on December 27th. Surprised: 5:00 am, and the streets full of people with flowers. It turned out, meet the shuravi, as we were called, the Soviet soldiers. A similar meeting was warm and in other towns and villages in the north of Afghanistan." At the beginning of 1980, the 5th GMRD began to participate in raids against the Afghan Mujahideen. During the period of the Afghan war, the division participated in 156 scheduled and unscheduled operations. On 1 March 1980 the division was reorganized. The 373rd Guards Red Banner Order of Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky Motor Rifle Regiment, had formed part of the division on its arrival in the country. It had been stationed in Adraskan. On 1 March 1980, the regiment was reorganized as the 70th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, by reorganizing the staffing structure of departments and integrating the 2nd Battalion of the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade. After the reorganization the brigade was relocated to the city of Kandahar. From 1980 to 1982 the division was commanded by the future commander of the famous 40th Combined Arms Army General Boris Gromov. In March 1985 the