More Russian Officials Warn: We Will Respond Militarily

Three high-level Russian officials delivered today the same message as that delivered most dramatically on the March 1 by the chief of the Russian Command Post for its Strategic Missile Forces, Gen.-Maj. Andrei Burbin the day before: Russia is prepared to respond with full, strategic force to any existential threat.

Yet the United States and the United Kingdom continue to plunge ahead on a policy of confronting Russia on its very border, by moving NATO forces into Ukraine. The Commander of the U.S. 173rd Airbourne Brigade, Col. Michael Foster, announced today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, that “before this week is up,” the United States will deploy six United States companies to Ukraine, for a six month training program for Ukraine’s notoriously-Nazi riddled National Guard. Last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron had announced that the U.K. was sending its special forces in to train Ukrainian forces.

This, even as Russia’s Ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko stated in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel:

“Moscow will take all ‘necessary measures,’ including military, technical and political to neutralize a possible threat from NATO presence in Eastern Europe.”

He specified that NATO’s actions “significantly impair regional and European security, and pose risks to our security,” citing intensified NATO military drills in Eastern Europe, with about 200 exercises in its eastern member states, mostly in the Baltic and Black seas, Poland and Baltic states. He said:

“Sending instructors and offering military technical assistance are playing in the hand of Kiev’s party of war and give grounds for certain figures in Kiev to believe the crisis can be settled by military means.”

At the same time, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Navy Chief Adm. Viktor Chirkov discussed the modernization of the Russian military, including its strategic forces, in public comments yesterday.

Shoigu reported that the Russian Navy will receive two Borei-class ballistic missile submarines, this year—the Vladimir Monomakh, which began sea trials in June 2014, and the Alexander Nevsky, awaiting its load of Bulava ballistic missiles before transfer to the Pacific Fleet—along with two general purpose submarines and five surface warships. He also said that the Air Force will receive 13 modernized strategic bombers, this year, and that by 2020, the strategic bomber fleet will be 70% modernized. He also said that bomber patrols will be expanded to new areas, stressing:

“It is important to note that such flights are regular, and we will not abandon this practice.”

The Russian Navy will receive 50 vessels of various sizes and classes this year, Admiral Chirkov said yesterday, according to Interfax news agency. Those boats are part of a rearmament program begun under President Vladimir Putin that aims to provide Russia with a navy capable of operating far away from home—a capability lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union—by 2050. Chirkov was quoted as saying:

“The period of stagnation in the development of our potential has long since passed.”

He also announced that research companies are already planning for the new aircraft carrier which will be built.

Interfax added:

“The expansion of naval power comes as Russia confronts the West over Ukraine.”