Russia and the rest of the world has been chewing over the frightening news: Britain has actually approved of the Kiev regime’s use of extended-range missiles against military-industrial facilities and administrative centers deep inside Russia. Soon, Kiev is going to get arms of the kind, beyond all doubt.
On September 12, Supreme Commander of Russia’s Armed Forces Vladimir Putin gave a short commentary on this news, saying that the war in Ukraine was taking on a new format, forcing the country to meet the collective West’s challenge.
What might Russia's response be, if any? Let’s try to think it up and predict, as far as feasible.
Moscow is able and obliged to respond, primarily with diplomatic, military and other specific moves against its enemies so as to maximize loss prevention in military equipment, army personnel, and civilian casualties. Great Britain is known to be going to provide our enemy with Storm Shadow missiles with a range of up to 1000 km, while American-made F-16 fighters are planned as platforms to launch them. Who would operate those is another pair of shoes, but NATO is actually becoming a direct party to the war against Russia.
Russian diplomacy will certainly come up with a response to the decisions made. International security and maintenance of peace are undoubtedly going to be top priorities in Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s report at the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York. However, the necessary efforts have already gotten underway in this respect.
On the sidelines of St. Petersburg’s International United Cultures Forum, Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov held a series of private meetings with many foreign ministers present. It must have been about developing a stance aligned with Russia to be voiced in New York to prevent Ukraine conflict escalation.
Another significant thing was Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu’s trip to North Korea and talks with President Kim Jong Un. The parties discussed deeper cooperation under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement, TASS reports. It is not implausible that their key focus was to specify actions of both countries’ leaderships in implementing Article 4 of the Treaty, which obliges a party to "immediately provide military and other assistance with all means at its disposal" if the other is subjected to an armed attack.
With China, Russia does have a similar strategic partnership agreement.
Foreign analysts suggest that Shoigu's visit to the DPRK was aimed to study prospects of signing an agreement on a prompt trilateral military-political alliance to curb NATO's aggressive posture and confront the collective West if it explicitly sides with Nazi Ukraine in the ongoing war.
The Chinese leadership is known for its (mildly put) great discretion about being part of military blocs. However, Beijing is getting increasingly aware of the growing US military threat as Washington has been forming and actively imbuing an anti-Chinese alliance comprising the leading Asia-Pacific nations. Beijing's stance on a military bloc with Russia may bring into sharp focus the genuineness of the two states’ allied relations. It seems that this topic was raised, among other things, at President Vladimir Putin’s St. Petersburg meeting with Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister of PRC.
Another Russian ally may be Iran, and the two are set to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement as early as in October this year.
As for military steps, the main thing is still further effective comprehensive implementation of goals specified for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, pushing its Nazi gangs and army to the wall, and establishing control over regions vital to Kiev.
It's a safe bet that in order to disrupt supplies of Western weapons, the Russian army command with all the intelligence data available would expand the geography of its attacks on enemy transport or energy infrastructure facilities. There is a good chance that in case of attempts to bomb Russia’s central regions, individual military actions may be carried out against logistics, transport and communication hubs of countries serving as transshipment bases for Western arms and hardware. Regardless of their affiliation with NATO, mind you.
A likely thing is that in quest for minimizing the yield of foreign missile launches deep into the country, the military and political leadership of Russia may decide to neutralize the US and NATO spy satellite constellation. The Russians possess every means it takes to accomplish tasks of the kind.
In case of real attempts at targeting Moscow or nuclear power plants, it may well launch attacks on Kiev-based decision-making centers and other facilities to utterly disable transport links with the Ukrainian capital and prevent it from freely accepting guests from states hostile to Russia.
In the course of its maneuvers in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, the Baltic, Caspian and Mediterranean Seas, the Russian fleet has been not only exercising protection against potential enemy attacks, but also preemptive strikes on military entities of NATO, the United States and a number of ARP states that pose a threat to security interests of Russia, China or North Korea. And the West is very much aware of that.
Russia’s military and political leadership appears to be amply provided with unprecedented technical aids to "blind" and disable enemy strategic offensive means. This is not about using tactical nuclear weapons by the Russians, even though work has been underway to amend and complement the relevant doctrine as well.
One has to bear in mind that Russian allies are capable of posing a security threat to the United States and its allies all across the globe. Leaders of Latin American states such as Venezuela, Nicaragua or Cuba may give the go-ahead to accommodate separate Russian weapons in their territories. At the same time, the Iranian-controlled militia formations with various organizations do have a track record of striking both US military bases in the Middle East and NATO warships. US and allied losses in personnel or military equipment have a historical sobering effect on global hegemony contenders.
So, we have tried to make our case about what might happen next as briefly as possible. However, it all depends on the political will of those at the helm in Russia empowered to make far-reaching national decisions.
