Bones

"He implied the US targeted the Embassy intentionally where it was later learned that that area was thought to be something else. Igor won't except that it was an accident which the US as so stated and has since apologized for."

Oh come on Bones. It's the same as Russia saying, "We did not intend to hit market and kill people in there". This is lame excuse, you are telling me that with all of technology that US has it manage to "accidentally" hit Chinese embassy? I don't believe it for a second, ok sure they did apologized so did Russia for the market bombing. US army can find person on the surface of earth and identify him/her wit satellite yet they some how did not recognize Chinese building. Do you actually believe this? If this is true then shame on the US military 🙂 I would expect something like this from Russia but not from the US.

Kim Arx, the last paragraph was sure booby-trapped, my apologies. Maskhadov suddenly agreed to "talk" with Shoygu and Vollebaeck, but on "his" territory. Maskhadov promised security, but Vollebaeck asked for more provisions to it. And, since, he's not "talking" to Maskhadov right now, additional provisions asked were not to Vollebaeck liking, I guess. Shoygu was clearly vexed by Vollebaeck's insistence to turn their meeting from practical matters at hand to a political settlement discussion, stating that, he's not a proper authority for such matters, advising V. in the end to get his a.. to some other place i.e. Kosovo. Shoygu was angry about NGO's making noise and raising clouds of dust, stating that, in reality only UNHCR and ICRC do work - others come in big groups, raise blah and disappear (in that same dust). RF Govt. is also not happy with all high-flying visitors behaving as though the Caucasus's some total separate entity. If my memory doesn't fail me, R. Cook was "politely" kicked out of Israel for similar behaviour. Putin enjoys a 40+% support meaning, if elections were to be held now, he would be the President. Afghan military attache (got all the reasons to:o)))) supports China in its support of RF actions. So it goes. Maybe You're not keeping several browsing windows open - it's the general reason of loss of typed info when a resulting refresh occur?

Kim:

I guess I'll just keep on winking, hehe. Sorry though..no bad intentions..just being a dawg. As a poet said: "It's a dawgy-dawg world" (I guess this time I am tryin'to be clever, huh?!) Ok, ok I'll stop guffing around now. So...

"Not sure, if they are in fact Russian civilians, I don't give 'em much chance. If Chechen? Well why is it you think they keep returning to Grozny with food? "

Could be for many reasons( if this tarrot card of yours is correct). Reasons that speak in my favor(relatives who help militants, militants camouflaged as civvies, etc.)as well as in yours(they are simply being unhappy Russian Army taking control over their city). You and I can only guess and assume. I've made my assumption, a valid, backed up with my knowledge of the region assumption (lived in South Osetia for a little short of a year).

"I have heard from people here that the Chechens are charging the civilians to leave and from the BBC that Russian soldiers are asking the civvies for bribes at checkpoints.
According to MY tarrot cards............."

Don't know. Possible. Not proud if it's true. It is pretty important issue. However it is a pEtty issue in comparison to what I know about chechen "fighters" treating Russian civilians outside Chechnya. Senseless acts of mass expolsions in public places, for example. Sorry if my point is cheap.

BBC..Britts..trust..worthy(?)..maybe. Defenitely more trustworthy than CNN, yakkk..

"Re. no. of Russian troops- did they over-estimate the resistance they would get in Grozny?"

Over is better than under. Just in case. Good strategy.

Putin? Anyone better at this moment? Not that I know of. Do you?

The frase of the day( I salut you for saying the following):
"Trying to work out who the hell is who in Moscow"

Me too, Kim, me too :0)

Isn't Russian an interesting and great language, huh?! And I am very glad we have something in common - I have a thing for languages too. My weakness is French. Parles vous? Under different sirqumstances(or a board with a different topic) I wouldn't mind to teach you few things..and you of course would've had to teach me some Dutch. Is it simular from German?

P.S. How do you think it is going to end?

Kir,

As you can see, I agreed with what you have said and simply decided to elaborate a bit as well 🙂

Fenriz

Dimitri ( - 208.198.122.14) on Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 05:02 pm:
and you of course would've had to teach me some Dutch. Is it simular from German?

Rot op

>=]

Fenriz,

Ah the hydrogen bomb, now there's another positive contribution to mankind !-) Granted there are individuals of merit from in particular Russia, however I judge a country not by reciting school textbook lists of acheivements, rather by the collective behavior/development of the common people of the country. In both of the countries of which we speak there seems to be a 'primitive' level of every kind of negative 'ism' invented, nationalism and racism being the most prevalent and offensive. And the leaders that the PEOPLE of these countries produce, or rather don't get rid of, make Western leaders look positively 'enlightened'.

Yes athough Tito was the extraordinary leader of Yugoslavia, he wasn't a Serb, so that makes zero for Serbia in my book. Did Tesla do his work IN Serbia or did he emigrate, just curious. The next great scientist may well have come from the KOSOVO region of Serbia, ah but then again he was probably dragged out of his house and butchered in the NAME of Serbia.

Mo

I am asking all the people on this chat board who are in opposition or criticsm against Russia or its campaign in Sectionalist Chechnya what they would do if U.S. states started seceding, answer:
try to stop it. Result: Civil War, just like one that happened in U.S., where north was victorious over south, had it not been the case we would be looking at two different countries today, just like we are nearing the gap to seeing the sectionalist republic of Kosovo becoming its own independent country, just like montenegro or Chechnya. Result: if we have a lot of these politically and economically unbalanced countries burning with crime and corruption, you have more chances of criminal figures gaining positions in office and goverment to help feed their drug and crime machine. In turn, some country like U.S. is going to oppose it and they will have to face this rebel renegade country who is defiant and is the spine of the whole organization which has access to vast arsenal of military and sophisticated mass destruction pieces. Examples of this are Chechnya, fortunately Russia did not let this rebel republic have airplanes and rockets fall into their hands. They are just a guerrilla force, but that brings up one more question, why is it that America keeps on backing these rebels? Do they plan to control the world by destabalizing countries one by one and then engulfing them into its Union? Is this the strategy of these facist minded politicians of America?

Bones

With your logic Russia should have no problem killing the rest of Chechen population. All we have to do is drop bombs and then apologize for destruction and for the casualties, how hard can it be:) Does apology justifies mistakes? I think it depend where you make mistake. When you accidentally spill coffee on someone and then apologized for it then it is appropriate but when you are about to drop 500 kilograms bomb somewhere there should be no mistakes, especially from US since they proclaimed themselves superpower. Now tell me if I’m wrong on this one?

Fenriz

What???????????????????????????????

To all the people who think dropping a bomb is an easy answer to solving a problem, yes true,
you will solve that problem but come out with more.

Question: Why not just drop a bomb on chechnya and kill all these caucas blacks?

Answer: because there is a significant Russian population in that region, problema. Not the fact that Russia is worried about Wests criticsm or threats.

Just one more thing i want to add, that i do not agree with Yeltsin nor do i like him. He is a corrupt pig, i have a tape that shows him in a meeting between top officials in kremlin where he is addressing issues and sluring most of his speech and when he reaches his last document and cannot find anymore, he asks, (Ny Shto? Eto vso Shtole? ... Nakonets. AMerican: Thats it? Finally.) But just the way he address it is so rude and unnofficial, so unproffesional, this is going down in history as a
madman, a drunkard and slacker. Putin, is a clever man, he has not made any mistakes, im eager to see his goals that he has envisioned for Russia. So long as he makes it through the gauntlet and barrage that he is faced with in relation to international and domestic issues.

Putin for President!!!

Bones, I also don't buy the "mistake" arg. re Chinese Embassy. The Embassy's not some penitentiary shunned by everyone - a place, visited by diplomats, including the american ones (military attache personnel too) - a perfectly known location. CIA spooks really had a laugh releasing that "outdated maps" crap.

Bones

One Russian general said today that army has evidence that Chechens did the bombings in the Moscow and will present them in the court during the trial. Do you believe this? Why or why not?

Dimitri,

According to the Germans it is simply a north-german dialect.... but don't tell the Dutch that.

There are plenty of similarities,but thankfully the Dutch have dispensed with the idea of sexing nouns. I mean why the heck should a table be male.
Something to do with the gender of the person demanding what's cooking in the(female)kitchen.

Kim

Wat zeg jij, Fenriz?

One more issue i would like to address, and that is the figures that are you are presented with by media and sources of all sorts.
Who are you more likely to trust, and official and licensed media coverage group or some rebel backed proganda by a single man and unconfirmed reports. Its like asking an american, who would you believe to be a police man more, one in uniform or one that is in a leather jacket, jeans and sneaker and claiming he is an agent. Lets see the I.D., documents and badge please...