Another Russian ship hit with missiles

 Red States:

Thursday evening, there was an unconfirmed report that another Russian surface combatant, the guided-missile frigate Admiral Makarov, was struck by a Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missile. This is the same type of missile that sank the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the guided-missile cruiser Moskva, last month; read BREAKING. Russian Flagship Sinks While Being Towed to Port.

...

Philips P. O’Brien, Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews, offers some insights.

Been wondering why the stories of US intelligence helping the Ukrainians target Russian generals and warships have been appearing, clearly based on information passed on from US intelligence sources. Here is the one about the US helping to sink the Moskva.

The best explanation is in this story as well. Basically the leaks are deliberate US attempts to let Putin know that the ‘weight’ of the US and NATO are behind Ukraine. Iot, a deliberate warning to Russia not to escalate.

It’s certainly an escalation of a type by the Biden Administration, which indicates, one assumes, that they believe the Russians really are not likely to escalate themselves to tactical nukes. They are certainly giving Putin an argument to escalate were he so inclined.

Fits a pattern. For all the Russian talk about using nukes, etc, they have been given a number of major opportunities to justify to their own people the need for such escalation, but far normally respond by trying to downplay or ignore these opportunities.

If the Russians don’t start making a major deal of one of the most well known papers in the US saying that the US government is deliberately assisting the killing of Russian generals or the sinking of Russian warships, it’s probably safe to conclude Putin doesn’t want escalation.

.... 

Russian losses are mounting and at some point, Putin should decide that the effort in Ukraine is not worth the further weakening of the Russian military.  I think there is also a message in how good US intelligence is and the threat that the US poses to the Russian military if Putin attacks the US or  NATO.

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