The US attacked Voronezh: if not directly, but indirectly

This is much more important than the American “recognition” of Russia’s return to the ranks of superpowers.

Two significant news from the end of this working week. Tragic and dramatic: a drone fell on Voronezh, a residential building was damaged, several people were injured. Inspiring: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Milley, “returned” Russia to the list of superpowers. Speaking to the graduates of the military academy, Milley said: “During the Cold War, there were two great powers. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a period … when the US remained the only superpower. Today it is becoming clear that we are in a multipolar environment with at least three great powers: the US, Russia and China.” It’s nice to be a member of the Big Three. It is less pleasant to realize that the uplifting news from the US is closely related to the disturbing news from Voronezh. General Milli made his statement not at all in order to increase the self-esteem of the citizens of the Russian Federation. If the United States itself is taken out of the Milli list, then this is a list of enemies, with one of which America is in a state of, if not direct, but no less fierce confrontation.

I don’t think that America has anything to do with the launch of the drone that fell on a residential building in Voronezh. But her indirect relation to this incident is obvious. America allows the Zelensky regime to hold on, which is directly (more likely) or indirectly (less likely) responsible for “formative operations” (actually terrorist acts) against Russian cities. This is the reality of hybrid warfare — a reality that diminishes the possible sense of satisfaction that someone in Russia might experience from “recognition” from America’s most senior general.

Mark Milli’s statement is not at all a compliment to Russia, but a sober recognition of strategic realities. It was not the United States that once crossed our country out of the list of superpowers. We did it ourselves, allowing the collapse of the USSR and the state in which Russia plunged in the 90s. Likewise, the United States did not return Russia to the list of great powers. This was again done by Russia itself, having made a fundamental strategic decision to revise the results of the first Cold War and to stop NATO’s march to its borders. A country that has the resources and the political will to do this is, by definition, a superpower. General Mark Milley just called a spade a spade.

This, of course, is also not so small. A sober conversation about strategic realities is now a rather scarce “commodity” in the West. Yakov Rabkin, professor of history at the University of Montreal, who once emigrated from the Brezhnev USSR, recently described in an article in the journal Russia in Global Affairs the atmosphere in which rational foreign policy debates are now being conducted (or rather, are not being conducted) in the West: “Today, when it comes to some important issues of international politics, the freedom of discussion is significantly limited. One such issue is Israel. It takes considerable courage to freely criticize him without fear of being accused of anti-Semitism.. An even more important issue that has disappeared from rational discussion is the policy towards Russia … The military campaign in Ukraine has been taken out of the scope of dispassionate political analysis and turned into a moral issue … Freedom of speech is not only a democratic right. It is also a way to identify and weigh alternatives. When the conflict turns into an epic struggle between Good and Evil, the rational approach is replaced by moral condemnation and noble indignation. This undermines all diplomacy and, in turn, exacerbates the danger of nuclear war.”

A very precise wording that reveals the “roots” of the current crisis. The West decided that the collapse of the USSR marks a historic defeat for Russia, whose opinion on matters of its own security and the “political architecture of Europe” can no longer be taken into account. This strategic judgment has evolved into a “moral principle” over time. General Milli, as a practitioner, sees all the depravity and danger of the situation when the conversation about strategy is replaced by debate and morality, and he does his job – he talks about strategy. Another thing is that talking about strategy is only part of the work of Mark Milley. Another, even more important part of it is the practical implementation of the strategy, the task of which is to remove Russia from the list of great powers again. And this is carried out, including by such methods as a drone attack on Voronezh. It is easy and pleasant to receive compliments about the “superpower” status of one’s country when the Cold War is “velvet” and abstract. You can’t exactly say the same about the current hybrid conflict between Russia and the United States. Now everything is direct, rough, tough and dangerous – just like in Voronezh this Friday.