A Russian Mig-29 taking off at the airbase in Gudauta shot down a Georgian unmanned aircraft and flew to the Russian territory. Georgians spread the recorded video of the incident. Russia began to deny immediately any involvement, saying the aircraft was brought down by Abkhazian anti-aircraft defense and that such an aircraft can be easily destroyed. Everyone is arguing if we did or did not that shooting down.   

I suggest considering the matter form the pilot’s point of view. 

That pilot has executed an order. Obviously, in any normal country and in any normal army he could be able to tell about this episode.  

This article is signed with my own name. I wouldn’t write it if I were going to sign it with anyone else’s name. And no decent journalist would ever write a paper signed with an assumed name. When an article is signed like that, that would mean it is an ordered article.  

There’s only one kind of activity where PR is undesired: that’s the criminal one. When culprits knife people or rob the banks, they don’t need any glory. For some reasons, the pilot who has executed the order is equalized to a robber, as he has been told to keep silence.  

The history of the army deprived of its glory began rather long ago. Actually, it began in Afghanistan, when the country named Soviet Union began to feel ashamed to admit carrying out a war. That’s when the Soviet Union equalized its militaries to culprits deciding to deny any war going on and saying there was only a limited contingent doing its international duty.  

That ideological fiction was followed with material consequences. As the duty done was international, it was performed in alliance with the Afghani party and often our drops were met and destroyed with prepared Mojaheds who had their people in the Afghani army.  

The killed soldiers from our shot landing troops could not even be buried with a grave stone saying “Killed in action in Afghanistan”. Such a sign on the grave-stone was equal to rebel. The grave-stones with such a sign got demolished, and those who put them could even be prosecuted. 

Then we couldn’t help lying in Chechnya. Allegedly, there was no war there again. It was just a “restoration of the constitutional order”. No-war-situation meant quite a pleasant thing: absence of any military enemy. Say, you came to the region and demolished a house with a tank, the house where the wife, children and the mother of some man got killed. The man took the gun and began to fight against your troops. If this is the war, then he must be considered to be your military enemy. And if there is “restoration of the constitutional order” instead of war, then he is just a culprit. 

That’s a very important point. When a military enemy gets prisoner by you, you must respect him in accordance with the international convention. And if he is just a culprit, then he may be treated in the severest way. That’s how first the houses with children and women inside were demolished, which was called “restoration of the Constitutional order”, and afterwards those revenging were killed which was called “destruction of culprits”.    

That was a convenient way of carrying out the conflict, but it had one disadvantage: such a way impairs the souls of the adversary parties and turns the war into a terrible massacre. And Dudaev initially tried to carry out exactly a “war”: he even let the Russian military prisoners go after the first attack made on Grozny. 

When a soldier is told that what is going on is no war, then he is allowed to consider anyone opposing him to be culprits and do whatever he wants to do with them. It also means, when the state denies it has been carrying out a war, yes, really it’s no war, but the crime being committed by it.

Returning to the shot down unmanned aircraft, what’s the matter? If Russia’s interests require us to shoot down Georgian unmanned aircrafts, then say it openly and shoot them down! Let the pilot give an interview. Let the pilot’s name get published. He and his regiment would be pleased with that. It’s no good suggesting him and his colleagues an idea they have been doing something shameful. And if this is a real shame bringing down Georgian unmanned staff, then just do not do it! If Russia’s interests require action, then it must not be considered to be disgraceful and must not be done secretly without admitting the fact.     

When the state gets the army deprived of its glory and honesty, and equalizes it to the culprits through suggesting to it that what army is doing is a shameful thing, then the army will behave in the way it is suggested.