Moscow further raises its sights on Europe in response to the United States' decision to deploy long-range missiles in Germany. After denouncing "a return to the Cold War" and promising a "military response", the Kremlin warned that the American initiative authorizes Russia to designate the capitals of the Old Continent as "potential" retaliatory targets.
On the opposite front, Kiev, despite having received new military aid from its partners at the top of Washington's NATO, is preparing to deal with a much more problematic reality : the promised F16s, which will begin to arrive in the summer, should be much fewer than the Ukrainian expectations. The American plan for long-range missiles in Germany will not start immediately, but only starting from 2026, first in an episodic and then lasting way.
But the announcement, formalized at the summit of the leaders of the Atlantic Alliance, was enough to trigger a series of harsh reactions from the Russian leaders. Dmitry Peskov, in an interview with a national TV, spoke of a "paradoxical" situation: the USA "has deployed a variety of missiles of different ranges in Europe, which are traditionally aimed at our country, and consequently our country designated European locations as targets for our missiles."
A race to escalation, according to the Kremlin, which however displayed confidence, threatening Washington's partners: «We have enough deterrent capacity on American missiles in Europe. It has already happened in the past. However, the potential victims are the capitals of those countries."
On the other hand, this increasingly aggressive rhetoric is counterbalanced by the Kremlin's desire to keep a channel of dialogue open with Washington. It is no coincidence that yesterday Defense Minister Andrei Belousov spoke on the phone about this dossier with the head of the Pentagon Lloyd Austin. A meeting requested by the Russians, Moscow said, to discuss "how to prevent security threats and reduce the risk of a possible escalation". The two had already spoken last month.
(Unioneonline)