Presidential aide Sergey Prikhodko said the talks between Medvedev and Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos will be the promotion of major joint projects, including in the field of technology, diamond mining and exploration of hydrocarbon reserves.

Russian companies are expected to participate in the creation of Angola's national satellite communication system “Angosat”.

Prikhodko also said there are good prospects for development of cooperation in electric engineering.

During the Soviet Union arms trading was one of the main fields of relations between the two states, but military technical cooperation is unlikely to be discussed in detail during the visit. It is more important to maintain weaponry and train personnel than to supply arms, a presidential administration source told TASS.

Soviet phantoms of Angolan war

AFP (ANGOLA-GUERRE)

Following the war for independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola faced a civil war that lasted for 27 years and claimed thousands of lives.

The South African regime, eager to establish control over the region, wanted to overthrow the government and put the opposition movement UNITA in power.

In 1988, South African troops reached Cuito Cuanavale where one of the definitive battles in the Angolan Civil War took place.

It is also known as “Africa's largest land battle since World War Two”. The lesser known fact is that Soviet military specialists were working with every Angolan brigade. Officially, however, the thousands of Soviet translators and consultants were never there.

Today, the veterans of Angola look back and tell their stories with a bitter smile. Andrey Polikanov, a military translator said:

“Take some of our boys in the Navy, for example. They were there, but their papers said they'd never left their navy base in Russia. When they found out, they were asking each other if they should just throw out the photos of them under the African palm trees.”

With time, the shroud of secrecy began to lift in Russia. In 2002, the Angolan Veterans Union was established. Last year, all those who served in Angola came under an amended Russian Veterans Law, but problems still remain.

According to Vadim Sagachko, the Chairman of Angolan Veterans Union, there are too many legal and bureaucratic hang-ups.

“For example – young translators who came to Angola and were in battle zones – in order to prove that they’d been there, they had to get a bunch of signatures from superiors, which they were totally unaware of. So they came home and got nothing,” he said.

They had to live in whatever conditions were available, knowing that should anything happen – they would vanish in Angola, because, according to Soviet officials – they weren’t there.

Yury Andrianov, former operations specialist for Angolan liberation forces believes “a Russian will try to make a home wherever he is.”

So, he recalls, “when we all got there – we tried to build a banya, hang some curtains – you know, make it homely.”

But, he continues, “if we were moved to the battle zones – well, there you do what everyone else does. Sleep in trenches, eat from the same pot – or not eat for days. In the end, Angola for us became more than just another posting. It became special.”

It was Angola which first thanked these men for their help. Their motherland chose to make them phantoms of war. Only years later did these men begin to be given a voice, but for many this has come too late.