The decree on the establishment of the medal was signed on May 15, 1988, on the day when the withdrawal of the first military units from Jalalabad began. On the front side of the medal there is a relief enamel image of the USSR state flag with the image of the state flag of Afghanistan superimposed on it from above, below and to the right. On the reverse side there is a relief inscription in Russian in four lines: ‘From the grateful Afghan people’, it is situated in the upper part of the medal. At the bottom of the medal the same words are repeated in the Pashto language in a circle.