by Jeff Childers
NBC ran a troubling story yesterday headlined, “Russia blames U.S. for ‘barbaric’ Ukrainian attack on Crimea, summons ambassador.” The sub-headline explained, “The Kremlin vowed retaliation Monday after the deadly strike on the Russian-occupied peninsula.”
Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on the Sevastopol attack:
“The fact the US is directly involved in this crime is beyond any doubt. Washington and its allies encouraged their Neo-Nazi puppets in Kyiv to commit terrorist attacks against civilians.”pic.twitter.com/LhjcZwkDLf
— أبو عمّار (@MaajidNawaz) June 24, 2024
Russia’s ambassador soberly informed the U.N Security Council yesterday that “The fact the U.S. is involved in this crime is beyond any doubt.” He warned darkly, “The involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences.”
Pursuant to Biden’s new policy allowing Ukraine to fire U.S.-supplied weapons into Russian territory, on Sunday Ukraine fired U.S. ATACMS missiles at the Crimean city of Sevastopol. The missiles were equipped with cluster bombs, which are designed only to kill unarmored personnel, meaning people, not tanks or planes or bases or anything.
Just about every country on Earth, except a very few like North Korea and the United States, believes using cluster bombs is a war crime.
Most of Ukraine’s missiles aimed at the Russian city were intercepted by Russia’s air defenses. But one exploded over a crowded beach, causing scores of deaths and hundreds of injuries, including dozens of children.
The pictures are awful.
Ukraine fanatics will argue whataboutism, or say it’s only fair since Russia attacked them first, or something similarly myopic. The main difference is Russia is a near-peer, first world, nuclear armed adversary. As much as Ukrainian die-hards would love to see the U.S. and Russia trade nukes, that will teach them!, the rest of us would prefer not to have to start building bunkers and stocking bugout bags.
Make no mistake. We will pay a price for this. According to the UK Daily Mail, Russia summoned the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, Lynne Tracy, and warned her that the attack would “not go unpunished. Retaliatory measures will definitely follow.” Americans will likely die so that the Ukrainians can temporarily enjoy a little Schadenfreudey, Pyrrhic victory against unarmed non-combatants on a beach in Russia.
It’s been nearly 48 hours. But Biden, Blinken, and Nod, I mean Jake Sullivan, have been unaccountably silent, all while the furious Russians accused the U.S. at the United Nations. More bizarrely, none of corporate media’s articles about the story quoted U.S. officials.
The reporters aren’t even asking questions.
The reason the Russians blame us is not only because they were U.S. missiles, or because Biden authorized Ukraine to launch them into Russian territory. Russia more blames us because the high-tech missiles launched by the Ukrainians were guided to their target by U.S. satellites. The missiles can only be programmed with GPS targeting data using our computers, and can only be launched electronically by U.S. technicians located outside Ukraine, maybe even inside the Pentagon in Washington, DC.
There is a rumor, which sounds like a joke, that there is a lonely Ukrainian soldier at the Pentagon who doesn’t speak English but is trained to click the final button to launch the missiles, so that the U.S. can claim it technically wasn’t us. The Russians don’t seem to appreciate the nuance.
I keep asking, where is Congress? Those chickenhawks should either officially declare war, or else shut this down before things get any hotter. Whatever game Biden thinks he’s playing, maybe tic-tac-toe, it isn’t worth it.
