Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Several senior Russian commanders went public with warnings against an invasion of Chechnya. Deputy Defense Minister Boris Gromov, the last commander of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, said on television: "It will be a bloodbath, another Afghanistan." The Russian press reported that 11 generals, including the commander of the ground forces, wrote to parliament questioning whether the troops could "accomplish their tasks under present conditions...
...naysayers were probably not fully aware of how formidable the Chechen fighters would turn out to be. Many of the mostly Muslim, mountain-tough Chechens who stood up to the tanks are veterans of the Soviet army, and some of the war in Afghanistan. They work in small, highly mobile bands, using their hand-held grenade launchers and antitank weapons to good effect: from upper stories in the city's apartment buildings they have easily pierced and set afire the weak topsides of the Russian tanks. They have the advantage of home turf they have known from childhood. And their...
...though yesterday Yeltsin pledged to limit civilian casualties. All 47 children escaped death by hiding in a basement bomb shelter. Chechen officials claim that 200 people have died in the fighting.Despite the continued ferocity of the attack and the fact that it's reminiscent of the long and bloody Afghanistan conflict, Yeltsin has not been the target of any major public protest, says Zarakhovich. Why? "Here people are so used to bloodshed and their leaders not knowing what they are doing that they have become numb," he says. Still, public opposition may be the least of the Yeltsin's problems...
RUSSIA: A Mini-Afghanistan...
...same day that Russian tanks, planes and troops engaged in battle with forces from the breakaway republic of Chechnya, Chechen leaders began peace talks with Moscow aimed at ending Russia's biggest military action since it sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979. "We have come to find peaceful means of settling the conflict," the head of a Chechen delegation said just before talks opened today in neighboring North Ossetia. Meanwhile, Russian forces continued their advance toward the Chechen capital, Grozny, after the Caucasian republic's loyalists reportedly fired rockets on the advancing troops, killing at least two people. Russian President...