"Remember that shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev went to Tiananmen to encourage that movement, what had been a peaceful standoff erupted into bloody fighting. Gorbachev himself was seen at that time by many socialists and communists, especially in the West, as a proponent of democratic socialism. Today he is one of the most hated people in Russia. He paved the way for the destruction of everything the workers in all the former Soviet republics built up over 70 years. He let the wolf in at the door."
There is no grand alliance. Russia has stated repeatedly and unequivally, and at great length, that it does not want to get involved in a military conflict in Afghanistan beyond allowing flights over its airspace, funding the Northern Alliance and flying the occasional unmarked bomber over the border. That's it. The people in the Kremlin are not fools. Most of them, anyway. You think they want a jihad to spread across Central Asia, like the one already raging in Chechnya? Not likely.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal