The prisoners fought the Afghan Mujahideen of the Jamiat-e Islami party (who were supported by the Pakistani XI Corps and American CIA advisors) in an attempt to escape.

The Badaber fortress, 24 km south of Peshawar, was a military training centre of the Afghan Mujahideen who opposed Soviet presence in Afghanistan.

Afghan Mujahideen, Pakistani infantry and tank units, and artillery forces of the XI Corps blockaded the fortress.

One was Nikolay Saminj, a Soviet forces junior sergeant, who was posthumously awarded Kazakhstan's Order of Valor, 3rd degree on 12 December 2003.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the head of the Hezbi Islami, said: Do not capture shuravi (Persian term for the word "Soviet") soldiers in the future, but annihilate them at the taking place.

[1]Yousaf Mohammad, a colonel in the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence service said: [the incident] could quickly get out of hand, or lead to international confrontation.

On 17 August 1988, President Zia-ul-Haq's plane crashed in an incident that Pakistan suggested was caused by the Soviet KGB secret services and Afghan KhAD.

He said: Unfortunately, there is no basis to proceed with the application for [the] award.This is a partial list of Soviet POWs: The Russian–Kazakh movie, Peshavar Waltz (1994) was loosely based on this uprising.

[18] A song was written about the incident titled "Mountains of Peshawar" by the Blue Berets about the valiance and the honor the Soviet soldiers showed in their failed uprising.