Russians at Pristina airport

Tim Newman recounts a conversation with a Russian paratrooper who was at Pristina Airport in Kosovo the day Wesley Clarke (allegedly) nearly declared world war three:

I had heard that during the confrontation, [British General Mike] Jackson had met his Russian counterpart, who spoke to him through a translator. On his first reply, Jackson dismissed his own interpreter and broke into fluent Russian, thus immediately gaining the upper hand in the subsequent dialogue. My friend remembered this happening, as the news of the British commander being fluent in Russian became quickly known amongst the Russian troops. According to my friend, the Russian commander, possibly acting on orders from on high, got rather heated in his refusal to give ground. He drew a line in the dirt with a piece of wood, tore off his shoulder patch (which features a map of Russia), threw it on the ground and declared that beyond the line was the territory of the Russian Federation, and would be defended accordingly. Hopelessly outnumbered, the Russian soldiers were more than a little frightened by the stupidity of their commander. Fortunately, he concedes, Jackson was a little more sensible and backed down enough to diffuse the situation. The Russians got to keep the airport for the time being, although in typical Russian fashion had neglected to supply their troops with food or water, and had to rely on the Italians, French, and British to give them their rations. In all, he spent 14 months in Pristina, most of it confined to the airport. His description of the relatively unpublicised attacks on the Russian troops in Kosovo by ethnic Albanians were pretty harrowing, him having lost several members of his unit, one in close proximity to himself. (Incidentally, the Pravda article linked to above is filed under "accidents"!)

Lest you get the wrong idea about the quality of Russian peacekeepers, I should point out that everyone I’ve spoken to who has served alongside Russian peacekeepers has a great deal of respect for the their skills, especially from NGO on down.  The quality of officers though, as far as I can tell, is a little… variable.

Tagged as: Military