Hi megan,
You've misquoted my question as an assertion!
For the benefit of any newcomers, this was my question:
"...are we to understand that, unsurprisingly, the TU-154 has a natural tendency to dutch-roll at low altitude, as apparently demonstrated in this video?"
Admittedly my assumption was and is that it does have the tendency, which necessitates a yaw-damping system, and that it was a major malfunction of the system that caused the videoed incident. That malfunction apparently involved cross-wiring, which may have exaggerated the tendency. Thanks for the link.
I'm wondering, however, if a simple absence of yaw damping, due to a spontaneous failure of the system, might itself render the aircraft difficult to control after take-off. Presumably, in this case at Sochi, the system was working normally on the previous sector. But even that is conjecture.