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lightemup said:
Just to clarify: Sub Umbra, Russia does have a credible CT capability, up there with other, more popularly referred to CT groups and organisations from around the world. It is just that they don't seem to be as widely discussed as the others, especially outside of Eurasia /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sssh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The structure of their organisation is not dissimilar to the CT efforts of most countries, including the US, Britain, and Australia /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.
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That may be so, but in any event their list of unsuccessful hostage rescues dwarfs their successful ones. By successful I mean missions carried out with hostage casualties at a fairly low rate -- comparable to the averages of other country's CT units.
It could be said that 70+ years of placing the well being of the State over the individual continues to take it's toll on Russian culture. In general, terrorist/hostage situations in Russia are resolved in such a way that the State obliterates ITS enemies, and the individual hostages fate is nearly always secondary to that end.
There is no doubt that Russia's CT forces are effective. To my knowledge they are 100% successful in suppressing terrorists with hostages. It's just the hostages that don't do very well. If they are trying to hide their success stories in freeing hostages they're doing a very good job of keeping it quiet.
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James S said:
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I recall a previous Chechen hostage situation where the Russians gassed the terrorists with knock-out gas. It had to be potent, fast acting stuff or the terrorists would have let rip. Consequently, a fair few hostages were seriously injured or killed by the mil-spec gas.
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The problem was that they used a very potent drug and then failed to tell the doctors at the hospital where the people were taken what it was because of either poor situation management or because it was top secret. I can't remember which turned out to be the case now as it was a while ago. But if they had been setup to administer an antidote or even had any medical folks ready as they brought them out of the building far fewer would have died. Problem is that you need something so powerful that it knocks you out before you realize you're getting sleepy or you hit the switch. Very nasty stuff and a lot of it. Hard to control the dose that an individual would get that way and so many were killed by it.
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Quite right. Another mitigating factor in the gassing deaths is that they waited far to long to act. Many of the hostages were young, old and somewhat infirm to begin with. Adding to all of that, by the time the decision to use the gas was finally made, they were also severely dehydrated.
The Russians won't likely make that mistake again. That's why I predicted action within a day or so in my first post. If they want to use the gas option they must decide to use it while the captives are still in relatively good shape. If we don't see the State use gas very soon, I think that option will be off the table for the duration of this incident.
If the State is indecisive and still goes ahead and uses the gas days from now, that will be another indication of the comparitive lack of value placed in the life of the individual by the State.