Posted by Sean on June 21, 2007
Sixty-Six years ago tomorrow, Adolf Hitler put Operation Barbarossa into action. The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union with initial overwhelming success. What Stalin knew, when he did, and what he did about it continues to be hotly debated. Like most topics in Soviet history, scholars are in a struggle to wrestle the Soviet response to the Nazi invasion from the politics of the Cold War. But these issues are for the most part academic and have little bearing on societies wider remembrance of June 22, 1941.
The real weight of WWII on Russia’s consciousness is difficult to measure. Opinion pulls show that 64% of Russians lost relatives in the war. Millions and millions of Soviet citizens were mobilized in the war effort. If there ever was a historical example of total war, Soviet Russia is it. However, this generation ..read more
Posted by Sean on June 21, 2007
Abductions in Chechnya appear to be declining reports RFE/RL. The total number of recorded adductions of civilians declined “from 544 in 2002 to 323 in 2005, 187 in 2006, and 16 for the first three months of this year.” These numbers were corroborated by the Russian human rights group Memorial which monitors Chechnya. Pervious data suggests that from 1999 to 2005 some 3,000 to 5,000 persons were abducted.
However, along with this decline is a shift in who is doing the adducting. Before most abductions were carried out by Chechen militants. Now “Russian and Chechen human rights activists say that at least three agencies have resorted to such abductions: the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian federal forces, and the various pro-Moscow Chechen police and security forces.” Partisan terror has become state terror.
Also important to point out is abductions have ..read more
