Russia’s “News of the Week” explains Putin on the “asymmetric response” to Western missiles fired from Ukraine
This evening’s edition of Vesti nedeli hosted by Dmitry Kiselyov, the chief of Russian state news programming had a five-minute segment in which he explained what exactly Putin could have meant in his remarks on Russia’s “asymmetric” response to attacks by Ukraine using Western missiles. The remarks in question were made just before the opening of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum when Putin spent several hours with senior journalists from 16 countries and then again in the Q&A at the Plenary Session of the Forum on Friday.
It bears mention first of all that the terminology Kiselyov used shows that someone in the Kremlin did a logic check: Russia’s response will be the same as Putin described however vaguely, but it is now called, very correctly “symmetric.” Indeed, if we reserve the right to do to you what you are doing to us, we are acting symmetrically.
Following his reminder to the audience that he has no “insider” knowledge of the specifics of Russia’s planned retaliation, he spelled out in some detail what this might be. To be specific, against whom the retaliation would be directed and which “enemies of our enemy” around the globe might Russia be arming in response.
The countries to be punished will be those that are supplying Ukraine with long range missiles, meaning those with a range of 350 km and more. There are three such countries: the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Elsewhere in the news program we were told that the most recent devastating and deadly attacks on Donetsk city were made using American ATACMS missiles, which fall into the category under discussion. The targets were residential apartment buildings, not ammunition dumps or other military targets that Messrs. Blinken and Biden would have the world believe. Obviously, this was target-practice for what the Ukrainians, with American help, may soon try to do in the Russian Federation proper.
For their retaliation, what will the Russians go after? Kiselyov spelled it out: the 300,000 or more American soldiers and officers on the 900 military bases that the U.S. maintains around the world.
And which countries that are in confrontation with the United States could be the recipients of Russian advanced arms? Kiselyov spelled it out region by region.
In the Middle East, this would be Syria, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Libya. In Asia – Afghanistan, North Korea and Myanmar. In Latin America – Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In Africa – the Central African Republic, the Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Southern Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Kiselyov did not miss the opportunity to mention the dispatch this week of a Russian naval force to the Caribbean headed by the hypersonic missile armed frigate Admiral Gorshkov and a nuclear submarine. He explained that after calling upon Havana, the ships would remain in the Caribbean basin for exercises that other ships from the Russian navy would be joining, and that even after that they will be staying in these waters until the end of summer. This news contradicts the assumptions that the U.S. Department of Defense set out to Reuters a day ago. No one is saying whether the Gorshkov’s missiles are nuclear tipped.
Finally, News of the Week was interesting for the brief excerpt from the Moscow, Kremlin, Putin show hosted by Pavel Zarubin which follows directly afterwards and this week features behind the scenes goings-on at the International Economic Forum. Zarubin always promises to show the audience more than anyone else does. Usually this is trivia, but today’s trivia was delivering a message of some importance. The video showed Putin and Sergei Karaganov chatting before they went on stage for the Plenary Session. They look jolly. A separate brief interview with Karaganov that Zarubin took shows the man as genial. However, as I noted in my essay devoted to the proceedings of the Plenary Session, relations between Karaganov and Putin on the dais were very tense due to the moderator’s needling, unfriendly questions about Putin’s softly-softly approach to foreign affairs and refusal to undo the privatizations of the 1990s or to reinstate an official state ideology similar to that in Soviet days. Karaganov tells Zarubin that he is “a free spirit” but no man can be a free spirit when questioning his president in a hostile manner before the world audience and expect to get away with it. Unless that man has the backing of anti-Putin forces in Moscow, as I suggested yesterday may be the case.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024