Based at Tartu, in the Estonian SSR, the 326th Heavy Bomber Aviation Division of the 46th Air Army of the High Supreme Command was one of the units operating Tu-22M-3 bombers during the 1980s, and tasked with flying air strikes on Mujahideen positions in Afghanistan, in 1986–1988. One of its senior officers, and the commander of the 326th in 1987–1991, was Colonel Dzhokhar Dudayev, a future major general. He was later the President of the ill-fated Republic of Ichkeria (colloquially Chechnya) and resistance leader in the First Chechen War. In the Aviation Regiment it is known that Dudayev’s ‘personal’ jet bore the number 50, was decorated with a black bird carrying a red bomb, and a total of 16 red stars – as illustrated here. The latter represented 160 combat sorties, in turn illustrating the intensity of Tu-22M-3s involvement in the Afghan War. (Artwork by Tom Cooper)