Good Sources on Cold War USSR and Warsaw Pact Soldiers, Conscription and RPG Details

[Icelander]

I'm looking to detail a few dozen former and current USSR and other Warsaw Pact military personnel in late 1990 and through 1991.

Most of them will be pilots and technical specialists concerned with Mi-8/Mi-17 Hip and Mi-24/Mi-25 Hind helicopters, in particular logistics experts skilled at setting up forward arming and refueling posts (FARP) near enemy positions, to keep helicopters in the air and effective as much as possible, but there will also be master parachutists, reconaissance experts and pathfinders to go in before anyone else to find and mark drop zones and landing zones, as well as specialists in aerial resupply.

Also, VDV and Spetsnaz personnel who have experience of being deployed by Hip transport helicopters and making air assaults supported by Hinds. The more such troops have worked closely with personnel of the forward arming and refueling posts for the helicopters, the more useful they would be. The same applies for pilots and crew chiefs of cargo planes providing aerial resupply, riggers who prepared supply drops and knew how to air drop ordnance or fuel into supply landing zones while minimizing the risk to ground troops, and mechanized infantry and drivers of ground units supplying helicopters at the front, especially behind enemy lines or in hostile territory.

What are some good books in English, ideally available on Amazon.com in Kindle format, on the subject of USSR conscript soldiers, their experiences, the basic form of the service, culture and what kind of contracts were offered for different jobs while serving?

I know there were conscript VDV and even Spetsnaz, so short-service soldiers were obviously somehow chosen for perceived elite units. For that matter, there were multiple services, from the Border Guards to other armed security services under the Interior Ministry, through the KGB (with their own Spetsnaz) to the GRU (at least administratively, owner of most Spetsnaz units involved in the War in Afghanistan), all the way to the regular Soviet Army, Rocket Forces, Air Forces and all the rest.

Was selection into different services, branches or units based on formal performance in physical, vocational and intellectual testing or was the process opaque to those involved and widely suspected to be mostly about who your family were connected to?

How were the different services perceived by ambitious conscripts who wanted to secure a place in a good university? Were the most dangerous combat assignments rewarding in social or economic ways, to make up for the risk, or were they mostly something the well-connected tried to avoid?

I know East Germans, in the latter years of the existence of that country and its conscription, had 18 months of duty, but volunteering for three years instead got you into NCO school. Officers had to agree to sign contracts for up to 10 or 25 years, but part of their service would involve university education and former military officers were often in a good place to go into politics or business, with their network of connections.

Was it similar in the Soviet Armed Forces?

How long would contracts be for skilled pathfinders of the VDV or helicopter mechanics?

How about specialist reconaissance platoons of GRU or KGB Spetsnaz? Were all their personnel full-time professional soldiers with careers ahead of them within the paramilitary arm of the GRU or KGB, or could it be that some picked conscripts served in Spetsnaz units under GRU or KGB authority during their military service, but if they did not specifically opt to accept an offer for a longer service and NCO or officer rank, for example, they would become regular citizens again, perhaps work as physical therapists or wrestling coaches in gymnasiums?

Were all helicopter pilots officers and, if so, when did they go to university to obtain a degree? Before or after flying in combat?

Basically, what do I read to most efficiently, but with some flavour, get enough information about the Russians and other citizens of the USSR who fought in Afghanistan 1979-1989, as well as various other Warsaw Pact military personnel of roughly the same period, to detail their background well enough for them to feel like NPCs with the texture of actual people.

Personal experience or family anecdotes of the period are totally valid information too.