On the Russian military helicopter crash in Shatoysky district
By Ruslan Isayev
CHECHNYA - The battle in Shatoysky district, which lasted almost a whole day, provided a graphic demonstration of the fact that the Russian military in Chechnya still has a function to perform.
The loss of a military aircraft involving the deaths of almost twenty people is something that has not happened in Chechnya for a long time. Helicopters have crashed in the past, of course, but at this stage, when the military campaign is almost complete, the public was hardly expecting such news from a peaceful Chechnya.
The Russian television channels did not give the news much prominence - they were far more interested in the reports of the events surrounding the removal of the Soviet-era Bronze Soldier in the Estonian capital. The high death toll of 18 men who were literally burned alive in the twisted wreckage of the helicopter this morning attracted little attention.
Nevertheless, observers took note of the fact that immediately after the Mi-8 crashed in the fighting, the military lost no time in notifying journalists of the number of casualties and, strangest of all, announced that the helicopter had been shot down from the ground. This was the first information published on the Interfax news agency’s Internet site.
Late in the evening the denials followed: the helicopter had not been shot down but had crashed, and a commission from Moscow was going to establish the definitive cause of it.
Knowing how stubborn the military are about acknowledging defeats of this kind, it was rather strange to hear that the Joint Troops Group (OGV) had made such a loss public. The reason for that was that the dead men were local Chechens, who make up the ranks of the “Yug” (South) Battalion.
Had such a loss occurred among other servicemen, not local but deployed from other regions, the story would have been hushed up for a long time so as not to upset Russian public opinion. But in this case the military were in a hurry to draw conclusions.
From a tactical point of view, this kind of behaviour on the part of the federals has its justification. It is simply a means to increase the rage of the Chechen law enforcement structures charged with the task of intensifying the fight against the guerrillas, who according to different sources number from 50 to 700.
From another standpoint, it clearly shows that for Russia the Chechens are still foreign material, despite strenuous attempts by the authorities to cultivate an opposite view.
Editorial note, April 28: According to verified reports, most of the victims of the helicopter crash were Spetsnaz GRU officers, not Chechen members of the "Yug" battalion.
(MD/T) RELATED ARTICLES:
· The Russian military in Kadyrov's Chechnya (PW, 23.4.2007)
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