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Russia looks outside its traditional sphere of interest to demonstrate it will protect its sovereignty.
Written by Paul Antonopoulos, independent geopolitical analyst
The U.S.-NATO Sea Breeze-2021 exercise, with the participation of Ukraine and other regional states, reflects the growing confrontation between the West and Russia, as well as the armed provocations aimed at pressuring Moscow. The annual Sea Breeze-2021 exercise between the U.S., Ukraine, and 30 other countries began on June 28 in the northwestern Black Sea and will end on July 10. The exercise involves 32 ships, 40 aircraft and 5,000 troops. In Kiev, these exercises have been called the “greatest” of all time. However, there are on average only 80 military personnel from each participating country as half of the 5,000 are Ukrainians.
Keeping in mind the small number of participating personnel from each country, even most of the ships involved are of low quality – with the exception of the American flagship USS Ross, that has up to 56 Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 1,600 kilometers, and the fairly modern British Defender frigate that has air defense systems. The Ukrainian fleet is made up of mostly obsolete Soviet-era ships.
It is recalled that the Defender violated Russian maritime sovereignty in late June and Britain was so embarrassed by the event that it even denied that the Russian fleet reacted strongly by firing warning artillery shots and warning bombs. Essentially, Moscow confirmed its readiness for a military confrontation with NATO to defend its sovereignty, not in words, but with live fire. From Kiev’s perspective, this is disastrous since it demonstrated that Moscow will not be intimidated in matters of national security.
On June 24, only a day after the Defender was humiliated, the Dutch frigate Evertsen thought it could do better than the British and tried to go to the Kerch Strait, but Russian Su-30 fighter jets and Su-24 bombers took to the air, flying a safe distance near the Dutch frigate, forcing it to change course. According to the Dutch, Russian planes had “intimidated” Evertsen’s crew for several hours with simulated attacks and even malfunctioned their electronic equipment.
On June 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “during a multifaceted provocation,” a U.S. reconnaissance plane was operating off the coast of Crimea alongside the Defender. The Russian president emphasized: “We are fighting for our territory, for our future […] they have come to our borders and entered our territorial sea.”
In face of this immense pressure, Russia’s naval and air forces are increasing their activities by holding unprecedented missile exercises in the Mediterranean, as well as the Pacific Ocean near the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. If the purpose of the Defender, Evertsen and Sea Breeze-2021, as well as the many previous provocations was to intimidate Russia, it has had the opposite effect as now the Russian military is looking beyond its traditional zones of influence and interest to demonstrate that it will defend its sovereignty. For the first time in modern history, the Russian Pacific fleet conducted large-scale exercises in the central Pacific region, only about 55 kilometers away from Hawaii. In the exercises, the Russian navy simulated the destruction of an enemy group.
American magazine Military Watch noted that Russia has the potential to strike NATO’s least protected southern flank due to the deployment of the MiG-31K at Khmeimim Air Base in Syria’s Latakia province. However, the Russian Federation is not looking for conflict despite the immense pressure it faces.
At the IX International Security Conference in Moscow on June 23, Putin, Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov issued a “triple” warning about a major war and said: “The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only in response to the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, as well as in the case of aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons where the existence of the state is threatened.” On the same day, the United Nations increased the risk of nuclear war.
If the purpose of Sea Breeze-2021 is to intimidate and/or contain Russia, it has spectacularly failed as it will only harden Russia’s resolve to defend its sovereignty against maligned forces. Although Kiev will see this as some kind of victory and demonstration against Russia, the fact that so few personnel from each participating country are involved in the exercise displays that there is mostly a disinterest among these countries to seriously go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine. Instead, most countries involved in the Sea Breeze-2021 exercise are only participating for the sake of fulfilling their duties as NATO member states. But as Russia has clearly announced, it will only retaliate if it is first attacked, thus ensuring that Article 5 on collective defense of NATO cannot be activated against it.
The very fact that an „ independent geopolitical analyst“, no doubt in the service of the Kremlin needs to write such a piece, downplaying the manoeuver‘s significance is proof that Russia is indeed worried.
Personally I‘m worried. This is an unwarranted, needless provication. Even if Russia isn‘t bullied, which is good, it shows that Ukraine’s new owners only speak the language of war, not diplomacy.
You flatter western imbeciles excessively. The ukronazi, Georgians, Chechens, saudis, zionists, tried to speak the language of war and look what happened.
Remember when hitler tried to speak the language of war with the Soviets?
The ukraine is simply the latest basket case nation run by american, british & zionist idiots. They literally have no clue wtf they are doing.
Russia´s response to NATO provocation is objective to the point. But, in the case of the UK destroyer entering Russian waters, i would look how China responded to a similar occurrence by using a large cargo ship to run a collision course against and American destroyer. If Russia keep some cargo ships ready to run over any future UK navy ships, they will not be blamed for starting a conflict and, if UK ship fires any weapons against Russian cargo ship, Russia would be justified to use their own weapons in defense of their cargo ship. I know it is complicated plan, but it would change the blame game on an eventual repeat of UK navy provocation.
@block – another Putin troll — idiot calls others to be idiots – is same when arsonist call fire in the theater and point a finger at someone else! Putin is Commie – former KGB agent and dictator rich as hell by using and selling resources of mother Russia for him self and band of oligarchs!
Must be message to US to watch its back in the Pacific. Presenting a credible threat to US Pacific naval assets including Hawaiian Islands is serious.
The U.S. and NATO are fighting wars of the 20th century. With all the missile technology now, all of those ships are floating scrap heaps. I really doubt the ability of them to stop a hypersonic missile from sending them to the bottom of the ocean. We have no idea if the AEGIS system that the U.S. Navy uses is even effective. To my knowledge, it has never been tested in actual combat. The HMS Defender is just the Royal Navy a few decades late, after their embarrassing lack of fleet air defense during the Falklands War.