Among the world's "hot spots," Angola is one of the most persistent. The United Nations has been trying unsuccessfully for almost 10 years now to end the war there and bring the different warring groups to an agreement.

Several U.N. missions have been sent to Angola over the last decade. Through their work, Cuban troops that had been fighting there were withdrawn and sent home and a peace process began, involving government forces and the opposition movement UNITA (National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola).

Between 1995-99, a Russian aviation group participated in U.N. missions in Angola. The group's main job was to transport military inspectors sent to oversee disarmament of civilians and the UNITA rebels, to help form a single Angolan army and provide humanitarian aid, including mine clearing.

With 120 officers and warrant officers and six Mi-8 helicopters, the group was one of the largest Russian contingents in Africa. During the group's time in Angola, several of its members were killed and one helicopter exploded when it landed on a mine.

In July-August 1998, I was part of a group of peacekeepers sent to Angola. Before we left, we underwent thorough health check-ups and were vaccinated against yellow fever. We spent the almost 20-hour flight to Angola playing cards and didn't feel any fear of the unknown lying ahead.

We arrived in Luanda, Angola's capital, early in the morning and spent a day there before being sent off around the country. I was sent to Luganbo in the south of the country where the Russian aviation group had its headquarters.

First, the U.N. commander in Angola, Maj. Gen. Obeng Sefa from Ghana, briefed us on the situation in the region. Things were tense, there was shooting at night and conflicts would flare up between the different local groups. But the Russian pilots weren't afraid. Some of them had fought in the first Chechen war, others had been in other hot spots such as Cambodia and Ethiopia.

According to the contract the group members signed, they were on call 24 hours a day for missions. The helicopters had to be ready to fly around the whole country at any time of day and in any weather. This included unplanned landings, sometimes in zones where active fighting was still going on. Another danger for the helicopter crews was the fact that Angola was literally covered in mines and the pilots had to use great skill to land the helicopters in places such as roads and football fields, where there were likely to be fewer mines.

The people I went to Angola with were top-class specialists. Every helicopter flew with two crews on board and the ground-based technical personnel had a wide range of related skills.

The group we replaced had spent six months in Angola without losses. Those whose contract finished in August 1998 returned to Russia safe and sound, only three people had caught a mild form of malaria. But in Angola, they had worked in conditions close to that of a war zone, and more than once their helicopters had come under fire. There was also the constant risk of getting in the way of a bullet on the ground.

The pilots in Angola received what by Russian standards was good money for their work – from $2,000 to $2,500 a month, 15-20 times more than they would receive in Russia. The pilots also went through a real "school of war," flying on average 200-250 hours over the six months they were there. By comparison, pilots in the armed forces in Russia get about 30 hours' training a year. This all explains why for Russian officers, participating in U.N. peacekeeping operations in Angola has such prestige.