Russia flirts with acts of war against the United States

Both of these delusions matter because Russia is a staunch enemy of the United States. Putin is increasingly rolling the dice to this end. In fact, it flirts with what could realistically be considered acts of war.

Take it “Wall Street Journal”. new reporting regarding Russia’s entry of incendiary devices onto air cargo routes from Europe to the United States and Canada. In July, two packages containing incendiary devices were detonated at sorting centers in the UK and Germany. The Russian military intelligence service GRU is believed to be responsible for these acts.

Although the charges were detonated in warehouses and not at an altitude of 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, it is a wake-up call to those who pretend that Russia is seeking a positive alliance with the US. Putin, a child of the Soviet Union’s KGB intelligence, despises the US for what he sees as its humiliating victory in the Cold War and its resulting support for democracy in Eastern and Central Europe. Put simply, Putin would be willing to form a friendship with America, but only if America first gave up its support for democracy in Ukraine and Poland, the Baltic states and Central Asia. Oh, and he supported Russian energy and political blackmail of Europe.

But with Putin now furious over U.S. support for Ukraine’s defensive war effort, the Russian leader has activated the ever-unsympathetic intelligence services. This plot is just one element of a broader Russian sabotage campaign that will last throughout 2024. Washington Examiner was one of the first to identify this campaign in April. This Russian sabotage against warehouses, factories and people involved in supporting Ukraine is intended to create fear and disunity in the West, without leading to direct NATO retaliation. It reflects very poorly on America’s deterrence posture that Russia believes it can threaten civilian airliners without risking American reprisal.

Although all three major Russian intelligence services (GRU, foreign intelligence service SVR, and internal security service FSB) are involved in this sabotage campaign, it is logical that the GRU is involved in the most aggressive plots involving threats to many lives. GRU director Igor Kostyukov is a dedicated hardliner who prefers the quiet pursuit of chaos to chaos impressive his SVR counterpart Sergei Naryshkin. And once the GRU is authorized to take action against a specific target, it has the impetus for unrestrained aggression. In 2018, two GRU officers callously disposed a very strong nerve agent in a way that led, for example, to the death of an accidental British woman.

The GRU sabotage campaign also reflects this predictable growth the Russian spy tsar Nikolai Patrushev. Fanatical in his anti-Americanism, Patrushev is prone to long-winded tirades about the evils of the “Anglo-Saxon” international order. But Patrushev is also deadly serious and an extremely intelligent strategist.

Patrushev, who was secretary of Russia’s National Security Council until May, is now an adviser to the president. Some analysts incorrectly characterized this transfer as a demotion. In fact, Western intelligence services believe it was intended to open up the secretary role to former defense minister and Putin friend Sergei Shoigu, while retaining Patrushev to oversee Russian intelligence antics. Putin’s appointment of one of Patrushev’s sons as deputy prime minister emphasizes his continuing power at the Kremlin court. Many Western intelligence officials consider Patrushev to be the creator of the Russian so-called Employment under the “Havana syndrome”. nanopulsed microwave weapons against US diplomats, military and intelligence personnel.

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Nevertheless, Russia’s attempt to set fire to a civilian aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean is undoubtedly a serious escalation. The United States should respond by openly authorizing Ukraine to use U.S. long-range weapons against military targets inside Russia. If not, Putin will sense that he has the political space to continue this secret war in parallel with his overt war in Ukraine.

That would be a problem. Presenting weakness is to Putin what blood in the water is to a shark.