Meantime in the Soviet Union, the Special Commission of the Politburo on Afghanistan which consisted of Yuri Andropov, Andrei Gromyko, Dmitriy Ustinov and Boris Ponomarev wanted to end the impression that the Soviet government supported Amin's leadership and policies. Andropov fought hard for Soviet intervention, telling Leonid Brezhnev that Amin's policies had destroyed the military and the government's capability to handle the crisis by use of mass repression. The plan, according to Andropov, was to amass a small force to intervene and remove Amin from power and replace him with Karmal. The Soviet Union declared its plan to intervene in Afghanistan on 12 December 1979, and the Soviet leadership initiated Operation Storm-333 (the first phase of the intervention) on 27 December 1979.