Paddycake, paddycake, psychopathic man, bake me some nukes as fast as you can!!
EDITORIAL
Russia is a Bandit Nation
We can’t help but wonder how Russians would have reacted to an American president being photographed with, say, Shamil Basayev in the same way Russia’s Dima Medevedev recently was with lunatic Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. And what if, during the meeting, the American president had declared his intention to supply Basayev with nuclear technology?
The New York Times reported: “Russia first offered Venezuela nuclear power in 2008, during an intense spell of anti-Western sentiment in Moscow after the war with Georgia. The agreement on Friday fleshed out that offer.”
Chavez certainly hates America just as much as Basayev hated Russia, and would like to do America just as much harm, or more. And America certainly could have justified such a move as Medvedev does, pointing to the need to counterbalance increasing Russian imperialist ambition.
Yet we doubt Russians would find such an American action acceptable. In fact, we think they’d probably storm the US Embassy in Moscow as they’ve done with much less provocation, for instance the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia, which was no threat to Russia at all.
This is Russian hypocrisy laid bare. It is Russian savagery, barbarism and self-destruction laid bare. It is a nation that cannot long survive, no more than could the USSR.
Let’s be clear: The United States of America is the world’s only superpower. It possesses the power to liquidate the whole of Russia in a heartbeat, and it boasts a wide range of powerful allies. Its economy dwarfs that of Russia, and its population is growing rapidly while Russia is shrinking. There is only one word for direct confrontation of provocation of the USA by Russia, and that word is suicide.
Yet Russians arrogantly continue this crazed policy, just as did the USSR, and when their nation collapses, again, they will again be “shocked, shocked” to see the ruins before their eyes.
La Russophobe 
Impressive braggadocio:
>> Let’s be clear: The United States of America is the world’s only superpower. It possesses the power to liquidate the whole of Russia in a heartbeat, and it boasts a wide range of powerful allies. Its economy dwarfs that of Russia, and its population is growing rapidly while Russia is shrinking. There is only one word for direct confrontation of provocation of the USA by Russia, and that word is suicide. >>
To psychotic Yankee National Socialists, it makes perfect sense to grovel before the allegedly invincible Yankistan while at the same time brawling about imminent threats from around the globe. Rev. Zigfeld and her marvellous team are actually offering, inadvertently, a hell of a lot more insight into Yankistani pathology than into Russia. Quite expected too: USians have never been much renowned for their knowledge about the world.
You seem to be using irrelevant arguments using emotional blackmail in your editorial “Russia is a bandit nation” for the exception of “Let’s be clear: The United States of America is the world’s only superpower. It possesses the power to liquidate the whole of Russia in a heartbeat, and it boasts a wide range of powerful allies. Its economy dwarfs that of Russia, and its population is growing rapidly while Russia is shrinking. There is only one word for direct confrontation of provocation of the USA by Russia, and that word is suicide.”
The world has got a bit tired of the US idiocy which repeats itself over and over again on different levels. See its samples below the post.
——————————
Michael McConnell (the chief of American intelligence) blabbered out in Senate hearings what the Washingtonians prefer not to mention in public.
McConnell mounted the Senate podium to break the unwritten code of conduct of a career intelligence officer. He said that the economic recovery of Russia, the Kremlin’s successful political moves inside and outside that country made the Russian leaders all the more confident they had charted the right kind of course and could disregard the interests of the United States of America. What displeases the American policy-makers is the sovereignty of Russia. This, and nothing but this, explains the anti-Russian strategies of the United States.
Charles Lewis, from the Center for Public Integrity in Washington DC, USA, speaking on a UK television documentary in September 2003:
“We don’t really give a damn for what anybody thinks. We rub everyone’s face in it. We’re Americans and you’re not. We’re really talking the Roman Empire here. We’ll do anything we want to do and anywhere we want to do it. You’re either with us or against us. Multi-lateral institutions like the UN are incidental and irrelevant to the powers that be. This is the image we’re sending to the world. That is what much of the world feels about this country this minute.”
USA Defence Secretary William Cohen in remarks to reporters prior to his speech at Microsoft Corporation in Seattle as reported by Associated Press: “The prosperity that companies like Microsoft now enjoy could not occur without having the strong military that we have. … conflicts in faraway lands such as Bosnia, Korea and Iraq have a direct effect on the U.S. economy. The billions it costs to keep 100,000 American troops in South Korea and Japan, for example, makes Asia more stable–and thus better markets for U.S. goods. The military’s success in holding Iraq in check ensures a continued flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.”
Thomas Friedman from “What the World Needs Now” in the New York Times (USA) and Illustrated by an American Flag on a fist: “For globalism to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is….The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist…McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”
William Blum, USA writer from the book, “Rogue State”:
“From 1945 to the end of the 20th century, the USA attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the USA caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair”.
Madeleine Albright, former USA Secretary of State to the United Nations: “The USA will behave, with others, multilaterally when we can and unilaterally as we must.”
Which is a bandit nation if I may ask? Rogue state #1 in the world – U_SS_A?
rts,
Nice try – Russia’s sovreignty – what a rubbish – you are SO insignificant, a laughting stock of the world with the allies like Ahmadinejad, Chavez and military might of russian Black See fleet – with great archeological value as opposed to non existant military value, bulava that refuses to hit the enemies of russia and a nuklear submarine efficiency of Kursk… Mr. Cohen of Borat’s fame should make a movie about russia’s ‘glory’…
And still you keep brawling about imminent threats from rogue states headed by vile thugs all the time. How about making your mind up which rendition of The Enemy you prefer, dunghead?
Manfred Steinfschweine,
You pathetic little russian kgb – do not flatter yourself, America is not going to attack you, Russia is desintegrating on its own – to watch this process is a total delight, and pleasure. At least, tovarish Steinschweine, you admit that USA is the ONLY superpower. And as for Russia, a third world country with aging nukes, daying population, abject poverty – let me know if I missed anything in this description of Russia – perhaps recent military victories in Georgia and Central Asia.
By the way I saw on the French TV the tragic pictures of those poor Russians the victims of the summer fires; living in the holes in the ground – waiting for the new houses promised by kremlin a while ago…..This is your reality….
Bonjour, mon TRÈS cher Monsieur. Permettez-moi de vous dire encore une fois ceci:
Yankee drivel
Void and trivial
The good thing about USian tripe stems from its blatant stupidity and arrogance, thus making it serve as a supreme eye-opener to people who might otherwise have illusions about “The Indispensable People”. Time to go to bed, kid.
Deeply regret to inform you, son, that neither am I Russian, nor do I live in Russia either. However, you are absolutely correct when you point out that Yankistan is not going to attack Russia, if for a different reason:
The dirty, little secret of US militarism and megalomania is its immense cowardice. Deadly US violence is ONLY meted out against poor countries with dark-skinned populations, much like the US sponsored Ziocolony behaves against the captive Palestinians and how the US home territory itself came into existence. Russia clearly does not fit this salivating picture of a defenceless victim. Of course, such petty details are of little concern to an ardent, yet clueless, Yank proudly spouting National Socialist tripe learned by rote.
I think this Manfred person is a little unhinged, so if we all ignore him, maybe he’ll go away
Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected president in a democratic country, much more democratic than Saudi Arabia, Azerbaidzhan or Pakistan, the recent US allies. All attempts to represent him as a “lunatic dictator” are ridiculous.
@Azerbaidzhan
Is Hugo “much more democratic” than Put… I mean, Medvedev, or is it the other way?
Saudi Arabia is hardly a “recent” US ally. Anyway, let’s hear what RT has to say about “recent” Saudi Arabia and its government!
The only “fault” of Chavez is that he is anti-american. For yanks anti-american authomatically means anti-democratic. Yanks easily support most lunatic dictators of the world like Samosa, Aliev, or Saakashwili, just because they are pro-american little dogs.
US installed and support the modern Iraqi administration and Karzai clique in Afghanistan. This alone is more than enough.
But you won’t hear much about Wikileaks leaks in the Land of the Free, right?
Oh, and a nice analysis again:
Media coverage: Wikileaks vs. Pentagon:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/10/2010102410827506430.html
Pentagon … had set up a WikiLeaks war room staffed with 120 operatives in anticipation;
We may never know what happened until WikiLeaks finds some document about their anti-WikiLeaks operations;
How the New York Times, the Guardian, the Times, and other big medias behaved after the latest leak;
– and other fun and interesting things.
Actually, Basayev’s “hatred of Russia” is vastly overrated.
For example: his (Avar) ancestors included a Russian deserter, he himself lived in Moscow for years – and even came to defend the Duma against the KGB coup in 1991, he has worked with the GRU later (in Abkhazia), he gave the red light to the plan to shoot down Yelstin’s helicopter during his first (and only) visit to Grozny in 1996 (the attack was supposed to be revenge for the killing of Dudayev, the SAM team was even already in position), he wrote to Putin the independent Chechnya would be actually allied to Russia, and so on.
(Supreme Soviet of course, not Duma.)
Basayev’s dead, babe. His hatred is not rated at all anymore, and God knows that’s for the better.
torture, exécutions, pillages, enlèvements, épuration ethnique, meurtres crapuleux, en cascade…
la victoire, en Irak, n’a pas été acquise grâce à la stratégie militaire, mais par une exténuation générale, par de trop nombreux bains de sang, par le fait de côtoyer l’enfer.
“The victory in Iraq was not achieved because of a military strategy. but was a result of a universal feeling of exhaustion, caused by numerous bloodbathes, when the country started to resemble hell on earth”.
Le Temps, Switzerland, after some of the documents from the Wikileaks latest leak were published.
http://letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/641e7dca-dfb0-11df-945d-f8381de1788c/En_Irak_la_proximit%C3%A9_de_lenfer
“you are SO insignificant”
Russia is still significant enough not to let the democratic West lay their hands on Russian oil, gas, and other resources.
This fact causes a dissonance in some democratically indoctrinated heads, and makes them repeatedly produce those boring predictions about the irreversible demise of bloody, KGB-ruled, neo-fascist, barbaric Russia (did I miss something?).
Unfortunately for them, their fantasies, even repeated over 9000 times, still can’t affect the reality. Anyone who wishes to check this can look up 5-year old statements of such people. May the Google help you.
Oh, their whole strategy is to “let the democratic West lay their hands on Russian oil, gas, and other resources”.
The democratic West is however divided: some (like Germany) are agreeing with Russian criminals in this, some (like Poland) are instead looking for alternative sources of the said gas and oil (I’m not even sure what you meant by “other resources”) as to avoid dealing with Russian criminals and give them a possibility to blackmail the real countries.
Robert is being quite, shall we say, funny here:
>> Oh, their (= the Russians /M.S.) whole strategy is to “let the democratic West lay their hands on Russian oil, gas, and other resources”. >>
I beg to differ here. Firstly, there IS a little difference, in fact, between Iraq and Russia in their respective relationships with Western imperialism. Russia under Yeltsin came appreciably closer to the Western idea of “cooperation”, did it not? Secondly, as a corollary, there would be NO such thing as La Russophobe on the Internet were it not for these little differences. Don’t be silly beyond laughable, please.
@Firstly, there IS a little difference, in fact, between Iraq and Russia in their respective relationships with Western imperialism. Russia under Yeltsin came appreciably closer to the Western idea of “cooperation”, did it not?
No, and it’s areal shame the West colaborated with the Russian criminals back then too.
And it’s a shame some in the “Western imperialism” (in particular France – much of the armament, even nuclear technology) colaborated with Saddam’s Iraqi criminals too.
The world needs a single set of standards, and both of these examples of double standards really disgust me (today for example: Lukashenko=Badguy , Putin=BFF).
Yeltsin should have died in prison. Preferrably in the Hague.
Also, one Hero of Russia’s (“president”, major-general, multi-billionaire, master of life and death of 1 million people, etc.) own double standards: (“the alcoholic Yelstin’s ‘idea of cooperation’ was to bomb us, but Putin… bombed us with love!”, or something)
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/24/ramzan-kadyrov-talks-about-chechnya-s-future.html#
Your fans want you to run as Russia’s next president—who would you like to see as president in 2012?
My idol, [Vladimir] Putin. I want him to be the president as long as he lives. I love him very much, as a man loves a man. He is a man of his word; he brought peace to Chechnya. We were in the hands of bandits, and the alcoholic [Boris] Yeltsin bombed us. Those who criticize Putin are not human, they are my personal enemies. As long as Putin backs me up, I can do everything—Allahu akbar!
>> Your fans want you to run as Russia’s next president—who would you like to see as president in 2012? >>
What a silly question, mate. Having a solid electoral base and a truly stunning woman of unimaginable intellectual tenacity at my disposal, the answer amounts to the following.
PRESIDENT: Manfred Steifschwanz
VICE PRESIDENT: Kim Zigfeld
Should, however, aforesaid woman refuse or resign, I can finally pick the right one to assist me: Nina Andreyeva from AUCPB !
One of those idiots claims the US leaders , are upset because of
” russia’s soveregnity ” , really ? Like anyone has nothing better do
than even care about their ” soveregnity ” . Besides , is not roosia
federation ? As for Mr. Schweinschwanz , he is nothing other than
the standard , roosian poser , pretending to be someone else , becuase
why would anyone want to admit to being a ruskie .
Maksym found me out — damn, damn, damn. Yob tvayu staryj padla mat’ !!!
On second thought, I might be of some even more horrible stock. Any thoughts?
Temps à dormir; bonne nuit tout le monde et de beaux cauchemars de Poutine à tous!
Manfred Steifschwaine wrote,
Maksym found me out — damn, damn, damn. Yob tvayu staryj padla mat’ !!!
comments;
Manfred Leibovich Leibov [kgb noxxxx]
Kak vy khorosho govoritie na etom sobatszym ruskim yazykie vy koneczno okonchili lumumba universitet ili lysenko institue – let try what I can say in russian – rossia eto gryaznaya vanyschaya pizda, gde ruskiye kassaglazye riaby umirayut – kakaya prelest….
Cher Manfred,
Temps à dormir; bonne nuit tout le monde et de beaux cauchemars de Poutine à tous!
comments;
Beaux cauchemars de PUTAIN a tous..This is the correct pronanciaion of Putin’s name in french…..Putain means whore in French
And Bush means bush in English.
But you’re surely a plumber, aaausa. You’ve got that plumber specific charm, and adore this toilet-level humour…
Just ignore him. I have noticed some time ago that this person has some kind of mental defect.
Maksym | October 26, 2010 at 7:36 pm | Reply
As for Mr. Schweinschwanz , he is nothing other than
the standard , roosian poser , pretending to be someone else , becuase
why would anyone want to admit to being a ruskie .
————–
Manfred Steifschwanz | October 26, 2010 at 8:43 pm | Reply
Maksym found me out — damn, damn, damn. Yob tvayu staryj padla mat’ !!!
On second thought, I might be of some even more horrible stock. Any thoughts?
—————————————————–
Birds of a feather stock together. Nice blog, nice people. Not a shadow of insincerity over Russia.
And I am wiling to give greater force to the next remark of mine. We might find it a bit inconvenient but these days conversation is not being cultivated as an art. Alas.
RV | October 26, 2010 at 10:46 pm | Reply
“Just ignore him. I have noticed some time ago that this person has some kind of mental defect.”
—————————————-
I feel the same way. Most of you here suffer sort of mental disorder.
Can hardly imagine similar phobic blog on Swaziland, Norway or Bolivia.
There must be something special about Russia some people can’t sleep at night but keep on thinking about the way of Russia to democracy.
Yes, there is something special about Russia: aggressive demands to being recognized as an equal to the West, threats to her neighbors, disrespect to human lives and dignity, to name just a few. Well, children are not equal to adults and respect is not automatic, it has to be earned.
Norway, Swaziland or Bolivia do not insist that they have a right to veto their neighbors’ entering in international treaties with third parties. Nor did I ever hear their demands to make Oslo or La Paz “international financial centers” although super-civilized and uber-rich Norwegians have a lot more rights to insist on that than barbaric Moscow does.
And of course neither Norway, Swaziland nor Bolivia has ever threatened to incinerate the world, like you frequently threaten us on this blog.
RV, honey, nobody in BRIC demands a thing from “the West”.
BTW, what number do you dial to speak to “the West”?
Just a remark, RV, Bolivia is, as a satellite of Caracas,
a member of the axis of Bolchevik Evil!
English transcription: “Bolshevik”
French transcription: “Bolchévique”
Last but not least: Long live said Axis of Evil!
Is Swaziland also some satellite of Zimbabwe?
Since when is “hates America” equal to “terrorist”? Have you been brainwashed by GWB and Co? Chavez, however lunatic he is, is not a terrorist. But Basayev is a bloodthirsty terrorist savage that can rightfully be compared to savages like Mohamed Atta or Bin Laden. Your attempt to milked a sensation out of a flawed analogy fails again.
Well, Chavez does sponsor terrorist groups like the FARC.
The Columbian military recently captured a whole load of anti-tank rockets from the FARC which had been sold to the Venezuelan military and then transferred to the FARC by Chavez.
Then there are all the FARC training camps in Venezuela.
Come on, USians sponsored Mujahideen and early Taliban terrorists, and many otherterrorist groups all around the world. Even Bin Laden in early times has been trained by the US instructors.
And Russia sponsored terrorists far earlier than the US.
Lets see, Black September and the rest of the PLO groups.
The Bader Meinhoff gang.
The IRA
The FARC
Various south and central American terrorist groups.
Today Russia provides political and military support to groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Is this a good excuse for US to support terrorism?
And the Red Brigades in Italy, November 17 in Greece, the Red Army Faction in west Germany, the list goes on.
Russia was and is a state sponsor of terrorism.
@Come on, USians sponsored Mujahideen
I don’t know about “USians” (Asians?), but the Americans, guess what… they still do! And now their also sponsor the new generation of Aghan warriors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeATUQzNB6U
(And in the late 1990s Russia was actually sponsoring the Mujahideen parties too. )
@and early Taliban
Nah, it was always Pakistan.
@Even Bin Laden in early times has been trained by the US instructors.
No, he has studied engineering in Saudi Arabia. He was only visiting the States when he was a nerd kid and then a playboy kid for entrainment. If you mean some other training, like military, paramilitary or religious training, he never had any before he wen to Afghanistan – he was just a fairly rich guy who knew how to build tunnels for Azzam’s network.
Stop lying, Givi!
http://rupeenews.com/2009/10/07/clinton-admits-to-us-support-for-bin-laden-creation-of-taliban/
Who/what is “Givi”?
And would you try and provide some more credible sources than “Rupee News” (which is actually claiming al-Qaeda “never existed”)?
You missed a quote:
The Taliban was a construct of the CIA and was armed by the CIA […] Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
Is US Rep Dana Rohrabacher a source credible enough?
Well, Chavez does sponsor terrorist groups like the FARC.
Was Taleban sponsored by the USia?
Oh, and Besayev killed a hell of a lot less people than Yeltsin or Putin.
His behavior was down to what Russia had done to his people, siege of Grozny, carpet bombing of villages, mass executions of civilians, that sort of thing.
Oh, and the Russians thought he was a fine chap when they unleashed him on the Georgians in 1992-94, even gave him medals.
Basayev openly targeted civilian targets far away from the combat area. Hospital and a school in the Caucasus, theater in Moscow, and many other civilian objects resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. Nothing can justify this kind of medieval savagery. While Russian _army_ might have committed war crimes, that was done in a combat zone, and their crimes in no way can justify Basayev’s crimes.
Sorry Jacob, but your opinions are wrong.
Have a look at filtration camps on google.
Your comment “the Russian army might have committed war crimes” is asinine beyond belief. They committed acts of “medieval savagery” far worse than anything done by the Chechens, leveling towns and villages, massacring women and children by shooting, bombing, staking them out and driving over them with tanks, declaring “safe zones” then shelling the crap out of them in a deliberate policy of extermination of the civilian base of resistance.
The Russians were the ones who started targeting civilians Jacob, and they reaped what they sowed.
Maybe one should show him the true meaning of his “combat area”:
http://www.archive.worldpressphoto.org/search/layout/result/indeling/detailwpp/form/wpp/start/43/q/ishoofdafbeelding/true/trefwoord/prize/Honorable%20mention
Another (and much famous) photo, taken also in Europe but exactly 50 years before, for a comparison:
The photos like the latter one shocked the world (made even Goering shut up and stop smirking at Nurnberg, instead he became visibly depressed and eventually hanged himself). The photos like the former however failed to outrage even the Islamic world.
Oh, so the hospitals and theaters and schools in Grozny were “in a combat zone”? Who ever defined this exclusive “zone” where the stuff can be blown up and people killed?
If a squad of Georgian special forces sized a small part of Moscow during the war in 2008, promting the Russian forces to kill quite a lot of Russian civilians while “liberating” them with poison gas and flamethrowers, would it be “far away from the combat area” and thus bad, too?
Some things that “a bloodthirsty terrorist savage” did as opposed to the various glorious “Heores of Russia” (from Budanovs to Kadyrovs, with Shamanovs in between):
-never raped or tortured anyone, never engaged in looting
-apologized / expressed regret many times and never denied his personal responsibility
-went ahead into a minefield and actually was blown up (but survived) to clear the path for his men, civilians, and even the Russian POWs (scores of volunteers than went after him)
-had his entire extended family (mostly non-combatants) killed
-proposed to end the war by just a personal duel between him (one-legged) and Putin, with Putin choosing the weapons
-offered to have himself tried by an international tribunal once the conflict ends
and more.
And btw Shamanov, he was just “rushed to the hospital with serious injuries sustained in a car crash that killed one and injured two other military officials near Tula on Saturday morning”.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/paratrooper-chief-hospitalized-in-car-crash/421462.html
You lack knowledge of history.
Grozny was a Russian city of 200,000 before the ethnic cleansings under Dudayev. There are thousands of victims accounts about these Chechen-led ethnic cleansings in the early 90ies.
By the mid-90ies, when the first war started, majority of ethnic Russians were cleansed from Chechnya – and that was long before any military action started.
@If a squad of Georgian special forces sized a small part of Moscow during the war in 2008, promting the Russian forces to kill quite a lot of Russian civilians while “liberating” them with poison gas and flamethrowers, would it be “far away from the combat area” and thus bad, too?
Stupid, remember the 9/11.
Jacob
you are talking through your arse as we say in this part of the world. The Russian armed forces bombed everything and anything that moved in both the first and second Chechen wars, including levelling Grozny and Gudermes, both cities teaming with civilians. I’m not for a second condoning Basaeyev’s conduct at Budyonnovsk etc but to say that the Russians operated only in combat areas is disingenuous and misleading, to say the very least. Yes there were rebels in Grozny, but both before and after the New Year’s Eve rout there were no Russian troops (except captives) in the city until the Russians arrived en masse, yet Grozny was bombed non-stop in this period. Whilst were at it it, you might bear in systemic rape of Chechen women and torture of young Chechen men during the war, not to mention murder on the ground of civilians and even farm animals!
If you are in any doubt about any of this, I suggest you read De Waal’s ‘Chechnya:A Small Victorious War’ or Chris Bird’s ‘To Catch A Tatar’, and give the likes of clowns like Nick Petro a miss.
Gudermes was mostly spared, the biggest artillery attack came in December 1995 and then “only” 267 civilians died in 3 days according to the Russian military’s official own figures, destroying or damaging little less than half of the city (“Assuming the estimate of 267 is reasonable, about twice as many casualties were reported to have been suffered among civilians as among Russian servicemen and Chechen rebels combined.” http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,HRW,COUNTRYREP,RUS,3ae6a7ff8,0.html ).
Which would be still a “complete genocide of Russian citizens” according to Putin’s 2008 vocabluary, but anyway.
And yes, there were Grad rocket attacks too, and cluster bombs, and snipers targeting children, and firing at fleeing refugees, and using human shields, and looting, all the usual stuff, but anyway it still means Gudermes was still mostly spared.
That is, compared to Grozny or Bamut, or Pervomayskoye in Dagestan for that matter, which is also told in the linked report (“Representatives from Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Memorial visited Pervomayskoye on January 23 to examine the destruction in the village. Not a single structure remained intact, neither homes, the market, nor the mosque”) – it was a typical Russian operation “supposedly intended to release the hostages” (citing HRW’s wording), and conducted just as usal in mass cases, that is by destroying everything with all means available (an only Russian alternative so far is not to not simply blow up everyone, but rather to gas them instead). And yes, it was not in Chechnya, which I guess it means it was “far away from the combat area” or whatever.
(“On January 26, one month after Gudermes and ten days after Pervomayskoye, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly passed a favorable vote to admit Russia to the Council of Europe.”)
@Yes there were rebels in Grozny, but both before and after the New Year’s Eve rout there were no Russian troops (except captives) in the city until the Russians arrived en masse
Actually it’s a bit more complicated. The New Year’s Eve assault was conducted from several directions at once. Most of the Russians more-or-less unopposed to the city center where they were engaged, surroundered and destroyed (Maikop Brigade force of over 1,000 men was famously wiped out completely in 60 hours), but one battle group (mostly paratroopers, coming from the northern direction, if I remember correctly) stopped mid-way, basically ignored the calls for help from their collegues in the other parts of Grozny, took defensive positions, and remained there. For a few days they stood there fighting off the Chechen counterattacks before the more forces arrived and the Russian offensive actions resumed more cauciously.