The World - News from July 14, 1988

A Soviet soldier who deserted in Afghanistan five years ago, went to the United States and was jailed when he returned to the Soviet Union, has been freed. Tass, the official news agency, said Nikolai Ryzhkov was released from a labor camp under an amnesty announced July 4 for soldiers who turned against their country during the Soviet army’s intervention in Afghanistan. At a New York news conference in 1984, Ryzhkov said he deserted because he was tired of the “dirty war” in Afghanistan, where Soviet troops battled anti-Marxist rebels. In December of that year, though, he went to the Soviet Embassy and asked to go home.