On this day, 37 years ago, May 15, 1988 (March 30, 1988 in the lunar calendar), the Soviet Union began to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The first batch of 1200 Soviet officers and soldiers from a motorized infantry brigade set out from Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province, on the morning of May 15, 1988 in 300 tanks and armored personnel carriers. After holding a withdrawal ceremony in Kabul, they left here and began to withdraw north. In Jalalabad, the Soviet Army stationed a total of 4 brigades, and only one brigade was evacuated in the first batch. Under the Geneva Agreement on Afghanistan, the Soviet Union withdrew half of its troops in Afghanistan within three months and all of its troops-115,000 troops-within nine months. A team of United Nations observers led by Finnish General Laurie Helminen was responsible for overseeing the Soviet withdrawal.