United Press International, TARTU, Estonia: The actions of the militants in Nalchik last week were “unprecedented” in their scale and organization, a development that highlights the increasing weakness of the Russian authorities in that region and the growing strength of the militants who oppose them, according to a leading military analyst in Moscow.
In an essay posted online over the weekend, Anatoliy Tsyganok, who writes frequently on the operations of the various Russian force structures, outlines in detail his reasons for that conclusion and argues that Moscow's latest proposals for what to do next won't improve matters (polit.ru/analytics/2005/10/15/nalchik.html).
Consider what the militants — whom Tsyganok identifies as “bandits” — were able to do: they attempted and partially succeeded in storming all at once three district militia offices as well as the headquarters of the republic's Federal Security Service, or FSB, Interior Ministry, special forces, border patrol, and narcotics control operations.
Such an action, the Moscow analyst continues, is “not simply a terrorist act.” Rather it is a clear and ominous indication of “a change in the scale and form of military actions of the separatists” and at the same time of the failure of the authorities to do what is necessary to respond effectively to this new situation.
Even though they were ultimately beaten off, Tsyganok says, “the bandits simply demonstrated that all the earlier declarations that the government had made about … about stabilizing the situation in the Caucasus, … [and] about the ability of the [Russian] to cope with new threats…are far-fetched and do not correspond to the realities of today.”
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