[chico20854]

April 9, 1998

The Mengistu regime in Ethiopia finally collapses as he is overthrown by his generals, who execute him and his ministers publicly. The new government comes to an accommodation with the remaining rebel forces and the civil war comes to an end. The few remaining Soviet personnel in the country are hunted down and killed over the next several weeks, ending the last vestige of the Soviet presence in the Horn of Africa. With the fall of the Mengistu regime the Eritrean rebels finally achieve a full victory against Ethiopia and achieve their independence. Even with the war ending the area is far from peaceful as marauders from Ethiopia and the Sudan continue to raid into Eritrea.

Unofficially,

Planting of the oat, wheat, canola and barley crops begins in Nebraska, a week late because of the long, cold winter of 1997-8.

Canadian troops on Victoria Island make desperate pleas for anti-tank weapons to counter the Soviet T-34/85s that they have nothing to stop.

RainbowSix reports that 29-year old Major Natalia Y. Ivanova, a GRU operative, is infiltrated into southern England by submarine. Born to an East German mother and a Russian father who is a serving General in the Red Army, Ivanova is fluent in five languages (including English, French, and German), and is an utterly ruthless young woman who is completely loyal to the Soviet Union. She manages to establish herself in Portsmouth under the alias Lisa Ross, the identity of a RAF Tornado Navigator who was shot down over Eastern Poland in the spring of 1997. Captured by the GRU and interrogated under torture, the Soviets ae able to create a false identity based on her life before she joined the RAF. Ivanova participated in several of Ross’ interrogations, and ultimately executed the Englishwoman herself.

Western TVD command, after analyzing the response of NATO artillery to the recent Pact artillery barrage and receiving a report from the chief of engineers on the status of assault bridging (most was lost in the campaigns across Poland and much of what remained was destroyed by tactical nuclear strikes on assembly areas in the fall), decides that an offensive on Germany will have to be launched from occupied territory in southern Germany or from Czechoslovakia. Soviet forces in Czechoslovakia proper are relatively scarce, and given the recent completion of rail links from Ploesti and Ukraine into southern Germany that seems the most favorable region for a continuation of the effort to drive capitalist imperialists from Europe. Accordingly, orders are issued to prepare a spring offensive and direct supplies and reinforcements to 1st Southwestern Front.

As the mutineers aboard Barrikada realize that the reactor technicians are not going to be able to restart the submarine's nuclear reactors they hold a "Soviet" (all hands meeting) to determine their next steps. Some advocate for continuing to restart the reactors, some urge heading for the nearest land (Svalbard to the northwest) over the frozen sea while a few are in favor of heading south, dragging life rafts in their storage containers along, and making way for the USSR across the open sea to the south. The debate rages late into the night.