Unprovoked attack upon a USSR base during the Cold War

I've just been watching an odd Cold War/WWII kind of crossover movie called Ghostboat staring David Jason of A Touch of Frost fame (click link here for brief plot details).

It's a somewhat silly movie, but what got me thinking, was, what if during the worst years of the Cold War, say early 1980s, someone actually attacked a Soviet naval base in the Baltic causing deaths & damage, but whatever evidence collected was inconclusive as to who did it.

So how do the Soviets react to such an unprovoked & unexpected attack with no one to blame for the attack?
 
So how do the Soviets react to such an unprovoked & unexpected attack with no one to blame for the attack?
Probably will mostly suck it up. After all, they do have experience with runaway American puppet regimes violating unwritten rules of the Cold War and attempting unprovoked attacks on Soviet property/subjects.
 
I personally think it would offer the Soviet Union (and to an extent, the other Warsaw Pact countries) an excellent opportunity to justify large-scale suppression of unrest in their realms, and especially in the Baltics and the Caucasus, citing "counter-revolutionaries" and "capitalist saboteurs." Perhaps even advertise and propagandise the incident to provoke some patriotic feelings in favour of the government and utilise a western/pro-western scapegoat (perhaps something as general as "NATO") in order to rally some much-needed popularity. An over attack such as this could greatly assist the Soviets politically, perhaps even when it came to the West's public opinion.
 
Probably will mostly suck it up. After all, they do have experience with runaway American puppet regimes violating unwritten rules of the Cold War and attempting unprovoked attacks on Soviet property/subjects.


The thing is, though, this attack is conducted on Soviet territory I gather. That may gain a different response than if it happened in some way off third-world country
 
I personally think it would offer the Soviet Union an excellent opportunity to justify large-scale suppression of unrest in their realms, and especially in the Baltics and the Caucasus, citing "counter-revolutionaries" and "capitalist saboteurs."
Do you seriously think that chem-bombing one country into the Stone Age and supplying weapons to Islamic cavemen in many other countries did not give Soviets enough excuses to justify repressions against organizations and movements organized and/or supported by West? And BTW Soviets did not have problem with Caucasus to speak of. If anything, Caucasian people tended to view USSR as mediator in their ethnic conflicts. Current Georgian position (American lapdog tasked with barking on Russia) is result of 18-year long anarchy in the Georgia proper, after Russians left Georgians to care for themselves.

Perhaps even advertise and propagandise the incident to provoke some patriotic feelings in favour of the government and utilise a western/pro-western scapegoat
I don't think so. Soviets were quite shy in advertising their failures. Even natural disasters did not receive adequate coverage.
 
The thing is, though, this attack is conducted on Soviet territory I gather.
Both, really. Soviets had regular border skirmishes with Shah's forces pre-1979 and number of Soviet ships had been detained by hostile regimes (Taiwanese highjacked Soviet ship sometimes in 1950s and kept crew in prison for years, with several Soviet seamen dying in captivity).
 
I don't think so. Soviets were quite shy in advertising their failures. Even natural disasters did not receive adequate coverage.

This is not about a failure. The Soviet Union was attacked on its own territory - it most likely did somehow retaliate on the attacker, but the attack did happen. It is, therefore, justifiable as the centrepiece of an advertising campaign that can rally the people against the evil capitalists who menace the West.

And then maybe use that somehow.
 
Probably will mostly suck it up. After all, they do have experience with runaway American puppet regimes violating unwritten rules of the Cold War and attempting unprovoked attacks on Soviet property/subjects.

Um... what?

(bear in mind I didn't live through the Cold War... too young. So unless I'd specifically studied it, I wouldn't know what you're referring to.)
 
Both, really. Soviets had regular border skirmishes with Shah's forces pre-1979 and number of Soviet ships had been detained by hostile regimes (Taiwanese highjacked Soviet ship sometimes in 1950s and kept crew in prison for years, with several Soviet seamen dying in captivity).


Yes, I'm aware of all those "skirmishes", but in this particular incident we're talking very close to home. In other words one of the Red Navy bases on Soviet territory: we'd be talking, either one of the Baltic Republics, or on Russian homesoil soil.
 
Yes, I'm aware of all those "skirmishes", but in this particular incident we're talking very close to home. In other words one of the Red Navy bases on Soviet territory: we'd be talking, either one of the Baltic Republics, or on Russian homesoil soil.

North Korea siezed the USS Pueblo in 1968 and held the crew captive for more than a year, and the ship remains in North Korea to this day. What did the US do? Nothing.

What could the Soviets have done if say, some Turkish pilots drop some bombs on Sevastapol? Probably nothing. If anything they'd cover it up due to the embarassment.
 
North Korea siezed the USS Pueblo in 1968 and held the crew captive for more than a year, and the ship remains in North Korea to this day. What did the US do? Nothing.


Yet, only four years earlier, Vietnamese planes attacked USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin & we get the Vietnam War as a result.


What could the Soviets have done if say, some Turkish pilots drop some bombs on Sevastapol? Probably nothing. If anything they'd cover it up due to the embarassment.


And yet when Korean Air flight KAL-007 strayed into Soviet airspace it got shot down for its troubles. More to the point this took place in the early 1980s around the same time as this AH attack takes place in this scenario.

All in all I think it's safe to say the reaction will be unpredictable, although the Soviet response I doubt will be nothing. ;)
 
If the Turks successfully attacked the USSR within its own territory, and especially some base like Sevastopol, I guess the Soviets would definitely retaliate, either will full-scale air raids on certain points, or some conventional missile strikes. It would be a direct attack of a NATO country on a Warsaw Pact member after all.
 
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