John,
Russians are bent not to take only Grozny, but to recover
Chechnya. The Russian army is tightening the circle around
Grozny and Godermes. They are bombing the Chechens defenders with Wu-24 bobmers and Su-25 attack jets, while the infentary is creeping forward, not very typical Soviet
school!
The news paper Nezavisimya Gazeta published the latest
warning by a veteran General of the first Chechnian war, Gen. Vladimir Shamanov. He claims that if the army is stopped, many army officers will leave the army, there will
be rebellions, and Russia can break-up in dozens of nuclear
-armed states! This is not a threat, but a promise, he claims! In a mickey-mouse dictatorship like Russia that claims to be a democracy(GGG!) I tend to take these threats
seriously. They can plunge in a civil war, and that is far
more dangerous than the threat we faced during the cold war.
It seems that the political leaders in Moscow
want to do take Chechnya gradually, but the army is anxious to take the Grozny by the storm, before the winter sets in.
Civilains want the military to dig in the for the winter. My
take is that Yeltsin camp is not willing to take a risk of
another catastrophic loss in Chechnya before the elections!
There is no telling who will win, the civilians or military.
However, once the election is over, without regards for
human lives, Grozny will be taken. Conquest of Grozny will
bring the war to an end! I doubt it! This is a political
war, Islam and terrorism have nothing to do with it. |
