Last week's attack was a repeat of a similarly bloody ambush near Grozny, the capital, a month ago. The stage for last week's ambush was set last month when a special police unit from the region of Perm, a city in the Russian Urals, was sent to Chechnya. Such special police units are better equipped to put down soccer riots than to fight in the highlands of Chechnya. It was not the first time that the units have served in Chechnya. But nothing prepared them for what happened on Wednesday.
Defeats are often the result of a host of errors and oversights.
But the lack of coordination between the Russian army and Interior Ministry forces appears to have been the main factor. A column of lightly equipped policemen decided to travel on a road that was not under Russian control and set out without a military escort. The Russians intercepted rebel radio communications indicating that rebels were lying in wait for the convoy. Why the military was unable to warn the police unit is unclear. And the police unit apparently ignored an ominous sign.