Afghanistan did (and does). But the Soviets never claimed Afghanistan was part of the Soviet Union, even during the occupation.
Turkmenistan was then part of the Soviet Union so there was a long border to the east of the Caspian and Azerbaijan was also part of the Soviet Union to the west of the Caspian. So there were indeed long land borders.
Oh, yeah, duh.
Again: Evolution - And subsequent new knowledge. The various actors at the time would not have access to this future history.
Still not planting a flag on “Yes” or “No.” Plauseble, but not decumented adequately.
I think it’s relevant. MANY of the people keeping the story alive are arguing, essentially, “Nobody messes with Russia, because the Russians are cruel and merciless, like WE should be.”
Bedlam proves that terrorists aren’t quaking in their boots for fear of Russian retribution.
You’re arguing ineffectiveness - Entirely correctly, IMO.
But really, that has no bearing on whether or not it happened.
This article claims the original source was the Daily Mail who quoted “intelligence sources from an unidentified country”, not the most reliable source, but also not “random conspiracy theory blog” level of source either.
Add to Bedlam and the Moscow Theater the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis and the Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis among others. The only lesson to be drawn is that Russia routinely kills more hostages than the hostage takers in botched handling of the situation.
The special-ops types I know (including my brother-in-law, a former SEAL) all say “It sucks to be a hostage.” IOW, in any violent hostage rescue attempt, there will be casualties amongst the hostages. Maybe many. One of the reasons the Entebbe Raid was so famous because of the very limited harm to the hotages; freakishly low (3 KIA, 10 WIA).
If you take a look at the 4 hostage situations in question the common theme isn’t just that some/many hostages died though. It’s that the ‘rescue operations’ by the Russians in all 4 cases were complete cluster-fucks. In each case not only did many hostages die, the majority were killed by the Russians themselves, not the hostage takers. IOW if you’re taken hostage in Russia, you should hope the Russians don’t try to rescue you; you’re more likely to be killed by your ‘rescuers’ than by the people who’ve taken you hostage.
I recall that story coming out when there were a lot of kidnappings in the Middle East, not generally called terrorist acts at the time. It was used by some to say we needed to get tougher in dealing with these situations. And they were Soviets at the time, not Russians. Can’t say if it was true but the story certainly could have been promoted by a variety of factions.
There is no finer source of propagandistic gibberish.
Actually, “blue-on-blue” in such situations is very common. Even in the Entebbe raid, there were at least two blue-on-blue shootings, with two hostages killed by ‘friendly’ fire. Granted that the Russian rescue attempts were carried out in a very chaotic manner by troops NOT trained for such raids, and it’s only a miracle that more weren’t killed. Hostage Rescue is not something that Russians have traditionally made a top-proiority. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done, just that such units are few and far-between there.
Even well-trained troops kill hostages - Witness the clusterfuck rescue in the sand-box where the SEAL rescue team killed the Brittish teacher hostage.
Seriously. The Mail doesn’t even make good butt-wipe.
While it has always been a Tory(and occasionally Fascist) rag, the Daily Mail was not always the journalistic cesspit it is now. During the 1980s it was a vaguely respected journalistic institution. Whereas “intelligence sources from an unidentified country” in the 2017 Daily Mail might well be shorthand for “stuff I made up so I could go to the pub” in the 1980s there probably were trusted intelligence sources involved.
There’s “blue-on-blue happens” and then there is getting 133 (Moscow Theater), 334 (Beslan), 166 (Budyonnovsk hospital) and 29 (Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye) hostages killed. The scary part is that these rescue attempts were carried out by the Russian forces best trained to deal with these types of situations. Every one involved some combination of Alpha and Vega groups, Spetsnaz and SOBR units. The commander of the Moscow SOBR was one of the dead at Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye. Contrast those death tolls with the Black Sea hostage crisis:
Bolding mine. I’ve little doubt that if the Russians had been running the show it would have ended in another bloodbath.
Hmm. Perhaps I should’ve said “Not trained to the standards of Western Militaries.” Their governmental style and military philosophy prioritiezes “Action NOW” over other means.
Reminds me of one of my favourite knee-slappers from a few years ago: What’s the only thing worse than being kidnapped by terrorists? Being rescued by Russians.
The country with the biggest and most sophisticated armed forces in the world sat back and tried to negotiate in humiliation for 444 days. Would a tough man government, who did not have to answer to an electorate, care? Or would they simply start with - “we will obliterate one block of your capital city - or one square mile of oil fields - for each day the hostages are not released safely. We don’t care what the international community thinks.”
Israel tries a somewhat similar tactic, with carpet bombing and shelling of Gaza. It may not necessarily work on those with nothing to lose.
PS. I’m Canadian, I have no illusions about Americans. However, note that when tough-talking Reagan became president, the hostages were released immediately. They did not wait to see if he was bluffing.
I doubt the tough talk from Reagan made any difference. Releasing the hostages after is election was their way of taking a shot at Jimmy Carter and pointing out their success in denying him re-election. And then tough talking Reagan decided to send them a massive amount of weapons in exchange for nothing. There others that see a deeper conspiracy behind all that but to me the incompetence of American political leaders is sufficient to explain it all.