Sevastopol As of the strike of an ATACMS missile on a beach near Sevastopol last Sunday - Pentecostal Sunday in the Russian Orthodox calendar - and the subsequent call on Monday to the Russian Foreign Ministry of the US ambassador to Moscow - Russia and the USA are, if not exactly at war, then in a formal state of conflict. The US has been accused of a “well-targeted” missile carrying cluster warheads, on a civilian population, something which, UN authorities say, is a war crime. The formal Russian position, therefore, is that this was not an accident, it was not the result (as I suggested on Sunday) of a Russian defense missile hitting an incoming ATACMS missile to tragic effect, but a deliberate act which killed at least four people, including two children, hospitalized many others and overall injured 150 people. Russia has said that retaliatory measures are sure to follow. As already indicated by Vladimir Putin the Russian response to Western greenlighting of American-directed “Ukrainian” long-range missile attacks deep inside the heart of Russia, may well take the form of handing Russia’s advanced Russian missiles (e.g. the nuclear-capable Iskander, which Ukraine has said it cannot shoot down) to Russian allies such as North Korea (with which Russia now has a military, mutual defense alliance) and Iran (with which it has something very close, perhaps soon to be formalized) and to anti-US militia throughout the Middle East that, like the Houthis in Yemen, are well positioned to inflict punishment on the US “empire of bases,” which is both its strength and now, increasingly, its Achilles Heel.
Toying With the End of an Empire of Bases
Toying With the End of an Empire of Bases
Toying With the End of an Empire of Bases
Sevastopol As of the strike of an ATACMS missile on a beach near Sevastopol last Sunday - Pentecostal Sunday in the Russian Orthodox calendar - and the subsequent call on Monday to the Russian Foreign Ministry of the US ambassador to Moscow - Russia and the USA are, if not exactly at war, then in a formal state of conflict. The US has been accused of a “well-targeted” missile carrying cluster warheads, on a civilian population, something which, UN authorities say, is a war crime. The formal Russian position, therefore, is that this was not an accident, it was not the result (as I suggested on Sunday) of a Russian defense missile hitting an incoming ATACMS missile to tragic effect, but a deliberate act which killed at least four people, including two children, hospitalized many others and overall injured 150 people. Russia has said that retaliatory measures are sure to follow. As already indicated by Vladimir Putin the Russian response to Western greenlighting of American-directed “Ukrainian” long-range missile attacks deep inside the heart of Russia, may well take the form of handing Russia’s advanced Russian missiles (e.g. the nuclear-capable Iskander, which Ukraine has said it cannot shoot down) to Russian allies such as North Korea (with which Russia now has a military, mutual defense alliance) and Iran (with which it has something very close, perhaps soon to be formalized) and to anti-US militia throughout the Middle East that, like the Houthis in Yemen, are well positioned to inflict punishment on the US “empire of bases,” which is both its strength and now, increasingly, its Achilles Heel.