Soviet-Era Journalist, Face Of Afghan War, Looks Back On Pullout --- When the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan 25 years ago after a bloody and protracted war, Mikhail Leshchinsky was one of the last people out. -- Leshchinsky wasn't a soldier. -- A reporter for Soviet television, he was dispatched to Afghanistan in 1985, shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, to cover the final stages of a war in which Moscow was rapidly losing faith. -- His last report from Afghanistan shows General Boris Gromov leading the few remaining Soviet troops out of the country on February 15, 1989. -- In the now historic images, Gromov is seen strolling toward Leshchinsky across the Friendship Bridge that once separated Afghanistan from the Soviet Union before declaring the nine-year war officially over. -- Gromov's teenage son then leaps into his arms, clutching a bouquet of carnations. -- It was a carefully orchestrated scene intended to spin the pullout as a dignified exit rather than a retreat following a devastating conflict that claimed the lives of 15,000 Soviet soldiers and an estimated one million Afghans. --- Leshchinsky nonetheless recalls February 15, 1989, as a deeply moving day. -- "My voice was shaking, and his too," he tells RFE/RL. "When he said he would like to erect a monument to each soldier who served in Afghanistan, there were tears in his eyes. It was emotional, of course." -- With more than 900 television reports spanning almost four years, Leshchinsky, 69, is remembered by many as the face of the Soviet-Afghan war. - More, Claire Bigg - RFE/RL., at: http://www.rferl.org/content/soviet-invasion-afghanistan-/25264395.html