In Charlie Wilson's War, Soviet atrocities in Afghanistan are often mentioned - mines rigged to look like toys or candy designed to intentionally maim children, Soviet soldiers slitting the throats of children in front of their parents, pregnant women being bayonetted and so forth. There are also scenes of Hind Gunships indiscriminately strafing villages full of unarmed people. Did these things happen? and if so, were they part of an intentional strategy, or isolated incidents carried out by ill-disciplined troops?
I have written regarding this before as part of a comparison with the US in Vietnam, I'm sure you'll find it interesting. If you have any specific questions, you are free to ask!
During their war in Afghanistan, the Soviets mainly occupied Urban areas while sending out search and destroy missions in the countryside (often strongholds for Mujahideen forces). They often layered waste to many villages agriculture and livestock, they did this to intimidate the local populace out of supporting the Mujahideen and an attempt to encourage relocation to urban areas (where the Communist government and Soviet forces had control). However, many opted to leave Afghanistan as a whole, and by the end of Soviet intervention in 1989, there were an estimated number of 3-5 million refugees whom had fled Afghanistan (most went to neighboring Pakistan and Iran). Also, Soviets dealt with insurgency very harshly, usually when a convoy was attacked, any nearby village was often met with heavy shelling, destroying them completely and leaving many villagers killed, injured, and/or deplaced. The Soviets also laid dozens of landmines across the country (many which still reside there to this day) to make it harder for Mujahideen to maneuver and made life hell for any local civilian populace. While the Soviets deployed brutal tactics in Afghanistan, the "toy bombs" is kinda a stretch. During the war the Soviet forces often dropped PFM-1 mines across the region, these mines were often mistaken for toys by Afghan children whom often were victims of this device. When news of maimed children reached western journalists, they began claiming that the Soviets specifically built the mines to target children. Whilst there is little to no evidence that children were the intended target of the mines, one can fault the Soviets for indiscriminately dropping unmarked explosives in places where civilian casualties were a certainty. As for the bayonets and throat slitting, that all seems to be sourced from Western journalists and should probably be taken with a grain of salt.