World Notes Soviet Union

The incident would not have surprised a Western audience. Two men described as drug addicts commandeered a taxi to the airport, killing two militiamen who pursued them. The pair then attempted to hijack an airliner and murdered two of the 76 passengers before being overpowered and killed by security guards.

What was extraordinary was that the report on the hijack attempt, which took place in the city of Ufa, 740 miles east of Moscow, was carried on Soviet television. Apparently part of Mikhail Gorbachev's new "open" information policy, which has come to include reports of accidents and disasters, the broadcast alluded to the Soviet Union's drug problem, which government officials until recently have tried to play down.