"Cold War II is On. Russia Moving Missiles" Topic

Just in case there was any doubt, the Cold War II is on.

Russia has, and/or is, moving mobile, nuke warhead-capable, mobile, ballistic missile launchers into Kaliningrad.

link

A pity we scrapped those Pershing IIs we had:

link

Ah, well, I suspect there are others we can move into place, if needed, e.g. cruise missiles, etc..

And we should care, why? Its their territory, they can move the damned things anywhere they want. Doesn't change one bit the overall balance.

I think that we should just choose not to play.

Then again, we're the ones building bases and planting missiles on his borders. It isn't like he's planting "Vlad's Missile Mart" along the borders of Texas or Montana. The boy's just driving his trucks around in frustration, we don't need any Pershings.

Our governments could be spending all that money curing cancer, or providing free pizza and beer for everybody, doing something useful. Instead we sit here watching, while they spend our beer and pizza money flexing their doodahs at each other.

free pizza and beer for everybody

I'd vote for any one delivering these things. I could really do with some pizza and beer right now!

In any case let the Euros take care of themselves.

Kaliningrad is an isolated and vulnerable enclave that's being fortified to deter NATO encroachment. There's a strong case to be made that this new Cold War is not on Putin but on us: link ťand link

Rampant globalism, Idealpolitik and the spread of liberal democracy as prescribed in Fukuyama's 'The End of History and the Last Man' have come to an end. The new POTUS will let Realpolitik guide American foreign policy for the next four years.

No pretty sure it's on Putin.

The countries around Russia have seen what Russia had to offer and ran away the first chance they got.

Russia is having a hard time adapting to the fact that others do not like what they have to offer.

I don't really know what the truth is, the media cannot and will not tell the truth about anything but I do know this, the great game of our regime change must must must stop! Now!

I wonder what the Lithuanian man-in-the-street thinks
about it…

No pretty sure it's on Putin.

Putin came to power in 1999. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 ABM treaty. In 2007, the US formally announced an intention to put ABMs in Poland, against the protestations of Russia.

Please list the strategically destabilizing moves you feel Putin made during the same 1999-2007 timeframe.

The Russians are moving missiles on their own territory to defend their own territory and interests. So, what's the big deal? Just don't mess with Russian territory and the problem is solved.

If the West wanted to de-escalate the situation in Eastern Europe it could do so quite easily. But that does not seem to be the western intention now does it?

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Why must we limit it to just your cherry-picked timeframe?

Invasion and occupation of Crimea (part of Ukraine)

Militarily backing proxy forces attacking in Eastern Ukraine

Invasion/attack on Georgia

Threatening to nuke various countries within NATO, and/or aligned with them

Aggressively flying jet fighters and nuke-capable, strategic bombers, near or within other countries borders, sometimes at supersonic speeds, with transponders turn off

Moving mobile, nuclear capable missile launchers into Kaliningrad

Withdrawal/violations of arms agreements by Russia:

"Russia has suspended the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE) and is not in compliance with INF. And, at lower nuclear numbers, cheating has a larger impact".

link

link

link

2007 example, just for you, Noble:

link

Developing and threatening to use submarine drones equipped with nuke warheads against other countries ports and coastal cities

NATO's pretty much unilaterally disarmed, but is now having to reassess that policy, in light of numerous threats by Putin and his surrogates, and all the various snap military exercises he's holding in order to try to remain relevant on the world's stage.

Nato has been aggressively expanding into Eastern Europe since the 1990's despite the breakup of the Soviet Union for no other reason than just because it can. Objections by a weak Russia were ignored repeatedly. Putin is the first Russian leader to push back, realizing belatedly after seeing one neighbor after another join Nato that Russia's interests can only be maintained from a position of strength.

link

link

An excerpt from the wikipedia link:

The first post-Cold War expansion of NATO came with German reunification on 3 October 1990, when the former East Germany became part of the Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance. This had been agreed in the Two Plus Four Treaty earlier in the year. To secure Soviet approval of a united Germany remaining in NATO, it was agreed that foreign troops and nuclear weapons would not be stationed in the former East Germany, and the topic of further NATO expansion east was raised.

Jack Matlock, US ambassador to the Soviet Union during its final years, said that the West gave a "clear commitment" not to expand, and declassified documents indicate that Soviet negotiators were given the oral impression by diplomats like Hans-Dietrich Genscher and James Baker that NATO membership was off the table for countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Poland.

In 1996, Gorbachev wrote in his Memoirs, that "during the negotiations on the unification of Germany they gave assurances that NATO would not extend its zone of operation to the east," and repeated this view in an interview in 2008. According to Robert Zoellick, a State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process, this appears to be a misperception, and no formal commitment regarding enlargement was made. Other authors, such as Mark Kramer, have also highlighted that in 1990 neither side imagined that countries still technically in the Warsaw Pact or the Soviet Union could one day join NATO.

NATO added three new members at the 1999 Washington summit, and established the protocol for Membership Action Plans. In February 1991, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and Slovakia (as Czechoslovakia) formed the Visegrád Group to push for European integration under the European Union and NATO, as well as to conduct military reforms in line with NATO standards. Internal NATO reaction to these former Warsaw Pact countries was initially negative, but by the 1991 Rome summit in November, members agreed to a series of goals that could lead to accession, such as market and democratic liberalization, and that NATO should be a partner in these efforts. In subsequent years, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its eastern neighbors were set up, including the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (later the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council) and the Partnership for Peace.

Please list the strategically destabilizing moves you feel Putin made during the same 1999-2007 timeframe.

Oh in many ways the backstory predates Putin but the current tension is entirely Putin.
For example Poland was independent prior to WW2 as were the baltics before Russia invaded and annexed the territory. As a result of Yalta Moscow dominated Easten Europe but encountered resistence in the form of the Czech revolution, squashed by Russian armor and Solidarity in Poland as but two examples. People tried to cross the Berlin wall to escape what was happening in the USSR.
Once the USSR collapsed those former countries took steps to protect themselves from Russia invading again and to access the EU market instead of getting robbed by Russian thugs as had previously happened under the USSR. To 1999 as you so ask Putin orders the FSB/KGB to blow up some apartment blocks as an excuse to invade Chechnya and flattened Grozny. He has continued to provoke conflict or just make them up since in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. He is unhappy that he can't do it in the former Warsaw Pact as they are now NATO members which is why he hasn't tried the same thing there.
The former Warsaw Pact countries have lived under Moscow and have no urge to return to that. Putin however refuses to accept that situation plus he needs more sources to rob and so is acting this way to distract from his economic and social problems in Russia.
As others have stated NATO was disarming but Putin will not let go and cannot accept the collapse of the USSR.

NATO hasn't been "aggressively" doing anything.

The countries that have joined NATO "asked" to do so of their own free will, not due to "NATO aggressively expanding" into those countries, unlike Russia/Soviet Union, which truly have "aggressively expanded" into Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Georgia, Afghanistan, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea.

Superb communist-era style talking points though, comrades.

The only thing discussed in the 2 plus 4 agreement about Getman reunification was that NATO would not deploy in the former East Garmany.
The Warsaw Pact still existed at the time with Soviet troops deployed in them with no Soviet plans for their withdrawl.
There was absolutely no reason for even discussing that those current Warsaw Pact couldn't join NATO as the Soviets were occupying them.

Whether or not promises of non-expansion were made and whether the Russians simply misunderstood the intent of western leaders, impressions were made and conclusions were drawn.

link

The bottom line is, Nato expanded with total disregard for Russian geopolitical concerns because she was simply too weak to do anything about it. Not any more.

Russia is still weak with an economy that is too energy dependent and is suffering with the current oil price.
Massive reform is required in a country with internal strains from lower life expectancy and decreased living standards. The recent changes in the laws to prohibit protests are intended to quell unrest as the situation further deteriorates. Putin turned the last planned protest into a memorial by killing Nemtsov in front of the Kremlin. All part of a plan to keep Putin in power
Russia would not fare well in a stand up fight against NATO and barely held on against a depleted Ukraine in the Donbass.
Putin desperately needed his custom union and that is being used to bleed the other members dry for Moscow's benefit.
Putin is desperate for sanctions to be lifted which is part of his price for conforming to the plutonium treaty he withdrew from. He Lso wants reparations and recognition of Crimean annexation, basically he is resorting to extortion like a thug.

Yeah, it would be so much better if Russia's ruled by someone more compliant, like that spineless Medvedev.

Even Putin is aware that he cannot hope to defeat Nato if he were to invade Ukraine, the Baltic states or Poland. But that doesn't mean he's going to roll over when Nato's hellbent on cornering Russia against her own borders by breaking off Ukraine or Georgia from her sphere. How would we react if Canada and Mexico sign a mutual defense treaty with Russia or China?

Keep Ukraine and Georgia militarily neutral. It's not too much to ask.

Putin, advocating on behalf of Ukraine, for reparations over his theft of Crimea from them.

Boy, that's a sure way to lose influence with the Russian people.

(Heavy sarcasm intended, and I get he want just the opposite, but couldn't resist the more logical country that should be eligible for reparations – not to mention the Indonesians and Dutch whose aircraft and civilians were criminally shot out of the sky by a Russian SPAA SAM launcher, by their Russian-backed proxy forces.)

I suspect it may be too much to ask if Putin keeps backing attacks/invasions against them, killing their people needlessly, and threatening to do far more.

Why would any country, or people, in the world want to remain neutral when another is doing that to them?

If someone killed your family, or neighbors, and further threatened you militarily, would you be willing, or want to remain neutral?

If someone killed your family, or neighbors, and further threatened you militarily, would you be willing, or want to remain neutral?

Don't put the cart in front of the horse. Pushing for and moving toward full NATO and EU membership were exactly why Russia took action against Ukraine and Georgia and killed some of their people. It had to draw the line somewhere. Russia has a sphere (or "near abroad") to consider.

We can't ignore geopolitical realities. Nor can we expect Russia to tolerate Ukraine and Georgia joining Nato any more than we will tolerate Canada and Mexico militarily allying with Russia or China.

Nato already moved up to Russia's very borders at the Baltics. We should take that as a win and not push our luck.

That Canada and Mexico argument is crap for the simple reason that those countries do not fear invasion from the US.

Russia has plainly shown it will invade and annex neighboring countries and so those neighboring countries seek protective alliances.

The fault lies with Russian actions 1940 – to the end of te cold war and then Putin repeating the same actions after those neighboring countries had gained independence.

First, let me offer that I'm not sharing my personal values, phylosiphy, etc. in the comments below. My views of good and bad, right and wrong are outside the scope of my discussion. I try to present my observations as objectively as possible, at least until the last couple of paragraphs, anyway.

I think that from the Russian perspective, our moves are every bit as provocative as we see or proclaim theirs to be. I'm not offering approval of motivations, political philosophies, etc., just offering an observation.

I see the players in both governments as being similarly motivated, fear-greed-power, for the most part, though not in direct parallels. The cultures impose different limitations on the players, the ideologies are different, as are the resources and boundaries.

But, they have been losing the game overall for some time. US interests and allies creep ever closer to Russia's borders. The US has a history of going places to help, espousing the ideals of Americanism, human interest, etc, but often we end up doing this by propping up dictatorships, sometimes overthrowing or destabilizing even democratic governments, violating treaties, supporting rebellions, initiating or supporting wars, etc. And everywhere we go, we never leave.

We have greater force projection capability, greater forces in numbers and readiness, greater technology, etc. Our number of friends are growing, at least from the Russian viewpoint. And to some extent, we are an unknown. Every four years, the rules of the game on our side can change pretty dramatically.

If we (here) were going to set up the game, Russia v. the US, which one of you wants to play Russia with the expectation of winning? And the game being played is World Domination. No doubt that each side would impose domination in a different way, but regardless, that is the game. Oh, and nuclear annihilation is a loss.

So, the game is conducted by someone making the first stroke, which is responded to with a counter-stroke, followed by counter-stroke, etc, etc. We like to demonize the other side's counter-strokes, but the reality is that their resources simply allow different actions from what our resources allow. Superficially, they often are presented as being more overt. Russia invades Crimea. Pretty bold and blatant. What they didn't do, was cross an ocean, extend their forces to another continent, overthrow foreign governments, and leave chaos in their wake. They just took over their neighbor by force, without hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from the action. Objectively, which is more overt, more aggressive?

Vlad driving his missile trucks around is a counter-stroke, a mostly futileand pointless counter-stroke. It doesn't really change the score in the game. It is a non-issue except for those who feel a little more likely to glow in the dark if the game is lost.

More subjectively now:

I can't stop the game, but I'd prefer not to see my tax dollars wasted on similarly pointless counter-strokes. For example, placing Pershings along somebodies border doesn't threaten the guy enacting their counter-strokes, it just puts people who don't control these things at slightly higher risk of glowing in the dark. What is gained? The guy making and maintaining the Pershings gets some of my tax dollars, the guy putty them there gets his doodah a little excited, feels manly about himself.

I think that we, the masses, get too caught up in the counter-strokes (as the players want us to do), and forget about what game is actually being played. My approach is that the world would be a better place with a little less of that game being played. That's all that I am trying to say.

Western involvement in Syria/Libya is certainly expansionist and was not asked for by their governments. These were both Russian clients were they/are they not?

Libya and Syria started as an internal domestic revolt from a population that wanted change and was prepared to fight for it.
That is the path available for those under Russian influence and why those countries that could have turned away from Russia and sought protection so that they never return to that.
Russia cannot accept such a path as that would encourage others in Russia to similarly rise in protest.
Putin killed Nemtsov to head of that exact type if movement and has jailed protestors to maintain the status guo in Russia.

It's only a new Cold War if we let it become one. Don't buy into the myths and spin being peddled and there is no Cold War. Ukraine is in such a mess because too many Ukrainians bought into the incompatible lies being sold from both Russia and the West. They now kill each other in the service of these lies. If they and we ignore the hyperbolic fear-mongering and see the agendas of both our own states and those of Russia clearly for the self-interested pursuits of power and wealth which they are, then we the people can proceed rationally and prudently forward to making a more gradual and gentle transition to a peaceful equilibrium.

Too many common folk have died fighting the wars and power games of the rich and self-entitled, powerful elites to let it happen again. We should turn our backs on the Putins, Xis, Hollandes, Camerons/Mays and Obamas/Trumps of this world and work peer to peer for more common interests rather than serving the selfish goals of those who believe they have a right to lead and control us. It's time to break the backs of the leviathans we have created and which prey upon us all. Statism is broken and we need to fix it before it kills us all.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

"Libya and Syria started as an internal domestic revolt from a population that wanted change and was prepared to fight for it."

What percentage of a given population must be in revolt to warrant foreign intervention? Should the USSR have committed troops to Northern Ireland in the 80's?

My point stands. Involvement in Libya and Syria are provocations against Russia.

Utter and complete piffle and a failed comparison.

A state airforce bombing civilians, the military use of artillery in built up areas, armor deployed against civlians, the use of poison gas against civilians.

Your point is ridiculous!

Your point also ignores that Libya did provide training and weapons to terroist organisations in the UK.

@28mm: The thing is, all of NATO's eastern expansion into former-WARPAC nations has been at the specific request of those nations. Poland, etc, didn't want to be Russian clients anymore.

Too many common folk have died fighting the wars and power games of the rich and self-entitled, powerful elites to let it happen again. We should turn our backs on the Putins, Xis, Hollandes, Camerons/Mays and Obamas/Trumps of this world and work peer to peer for more common interests rather than serving the selfish goals of those who believe they have a right to lead and control us. It's time to break the backs of the leviathans we have created and which prey upon us all. Statism is broken and we need to fix it before it kills us all.

Nice but thoroughly unrealistic. You'd have as much luck having everyone join hands and sing Kumbaya….

kiltboy:

That Canada and Mexico argument is crap for the simple reason that those countries do not fear invasion from the US.

Russia has plainly shown it will invade and annex neighboring countries and so those neighboring countries seek protective alliances.

A convenient way to justify our double standard surely. When Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia joined Nato in 1991, Russia's military was in no shape to invade them. And Gorbachev certainly wasn't going to. The fact of the matter is that Nato took the opportunity to expand because a weak Russia couldn't do a darn thing about it.

Lion:

The thing is, all of NATO's eastern expansion into former-WARPAC nations has been at the specific request of those nations. Poland, etc, didn't want to be Russian clients anymore.

That's true, Lion, but that doesn't help Russia or allay her concerns of being encircled by Nato at all. As John Mearsheimer argues, western globalism and the spread of liberalism had much to do with the blowback we're seeing from Russia:

PDF link

In the article, he also stated:

Abstract rights such as self-determination are largely meaningless when powerful states get into brawls with weaker states. Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War?
The United States certainly did not think so, and the Russians think the same way about Ukraine joining the West. It is in Ukraine's interest to understand these facts of life and tread carefully when dealing with its more powerful neighbor.

Even elder statesman Henry Kissinger believes that we should take a more pragmatic approach based on Realpolitik in the spirit of cooperating with Russia on issues of common interest than continuing on the path of antagonizing Russia:

link

28mm Fanatik.

Not a double standard at all.

Those countries had suffered 50 years of soviet occupation and weren't going to risk a repeat.

You are looking at events with far too narrow a time reference.

We've tried "cooperating" with Russia in the past, AND that's what got us to where we are today.

Hell, we even helped bail them out in WWII.

Russia was a major threat to the Eastern European countries back in 1991 – Russia was far stronger militarily back then, than it is today.

We did not try to "cooperate" with Russia. What we did was dictate to them and give them empty reassurances that integrating Georgia and the Ukraine into Nato and the EU is actually good for them. The real goal is to give Russia the simple choice of either becoming a European-style liberal democracy or become increasingly isolated.

During his attempt to "reset" with Russia the outgoing POTUS even told Russia that its geopolitical concerns regarding Nato expansion and proposed basing of ABM's in Poland are unfounded because it reflects a "Cold War mentality." As if only America is allowed to play the geopolitical game.

@irishserb

You made some interesting observations in your post. We can only hope that the new POTUS will de-escalate this game of tit-for-tat brinkmanship with Russia.

Charlie 12:

Holding onto to liberty in the face of grasping concentrations of power and wealth has never been easy nor without cost. It was the accumulation of wealth and its attendant greed that the Athenians feared as much as Persia and Sparta. It was wealth induced decadence which corrupted and crippled Sparta and it was the absolutism of kings which led to the tyranny of Macedonian imperialism. As Greece did so Rome was corrupted from within and fell due to greed, ambition and the accumulation of wealth. 240 years ago your forefathers fought a war to liberate themselves from the rising greed, power entitlement and statist abuse at the hands of the UK.

"Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value."
― Tom Paine

Clinging to the notion that we are slaves of the state and subject to its leaders' whims and schemes is the way to most easily slip into despotism. We own our lives, not they. We have the choice of simply refusing to cooperate with their projects and conflicts. Their power comes from our willingness to comply. Deny compliance and the state is hobbled. Start local and work your way up, until the whole state is rebalanced and reformed and then keep reforming it to limit the concentration of wealth and power. The pursuit of happiness is a fine and noble goal, but attainment of unlimited happiness imposes misery on too many others.

It's not a pipe dream but until we dispell the myth that we are powerless before the Great Oz, we will be yoked to statism and subject to its abuses.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Rod- I assume you have been watching events over the last 30 days due south of you. You then would see that, however laudable and noble your high minded ideals may be, they have exactly a snowballs chance in hell of coming to fruition. And that's just locally. That doesn't include the rest of the world (such as Putin's Russia, where such idealism is even less likely).

I like idealism, but I also live in the REAL world….

Then perhaps Mother Russia needs to accept that when you act like an invading bear, your neighbors don't like you and will take actions to protect themselves from Mother Russia.

Stop the military posturing and you will remove most of the desire for former Soviet states to join NATO!

Charlie 12:

Two words by way of example – Standing Rock.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Stop the military posturing

I totally agree. The military posturing only increases tension. But sometimes they are necessary to remind the west to back off in Russia's own backyard.

The problem is, "Russia's Backyard" actually stops at the Russian border.

Poland does not want to be a Russian client state again, so joined NATO after the Wall fell. Same with the Baltics. None of them are "Russia's Backyard", they are all sovereign nations of their own!

A limited ABM deployment doesn't stop a full strategic strike, it stops the lunatic with a single nuke.

Ah, well, I suspect there are others we can move into place, if needed, e.g. cruise missiles, etc..

Those are called Tridents, and they are almost always in motion. Probably a third of them are constantly within reach of their targets, maybe more.

So that's why Soviet nuke bombers are flying sorties off the coasts of the USA, and over and around Europe?

Ha, ha, ha, ha……….

Thanks for the laugh.

Time for another Chrome-Dome exercise, me thinks.

Oh, I'm sure that the USAF is up do doing it, I'm just not sure that they'll manage to avoid loading live nukes…

I believe the main thing to remember is that Georgia, Ukraine, Poland etc are individual nation states and have the right to belong to what ever club they want to. These nations choose to join or not join NATO, thier CHOICE and should not be bullied by any nation into doing what is best for that nation.

The problem is, "Russia's Backyard" actually stops at the Russian border.

Not in their view. Russia always needed a buffer. The Warsaw Pact client states provided a 45-year buffer against Germany. Russia did not anticipate that this buffer will disappear altogether when the Berlin Wall fell. The buffer was allowed to shrink smaller and smaller through Nato expansion until Putin decided that enough is enough.

There's also the perception that the US instigated anti-Russian revolts during the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. What we see as legitimate democracy promotion ("globalism"), Russia sees as an unwarranted intrusion into its geographic sphere of interest ("near abroad"). Then this perception was reinforced when the pro-Russian president of Ukraine Yanukovych was replaced with Poroshenko in 2014. It's no secret in Russia that American NGO's played a large role in supporting the Nationalists.

Not to mention Putin firmly believed the US tried to swing the 2011 election in Russia against him, which he may have "returned the favor" recently so-to-speak.

Anyway, sometimes it's easy to look at an issue from only our own perspective and disregard how others feel. An "us versus them" mentality develops in which we're always right and they're always wrong. Regardless of how you stand on US-Russia relations, this has been a constructive exercise and I will leave it at that.

Lion the n to he Stars and piketopike:

The problem is, "Russia's Backyard" actually stops at the Russian border.

The problem with the backyard analysis is that the West views it's backyard as the whole world. While Russia has been fighting a losing battle to maintain its near-abroad in Eastern Europe, the West has absorbed many former Warsaw Pact states, supported the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and bombed Serbia, supported revolutions in Romania and Bulgaria, destabilised Georgia and encouraged Georgian independence, encouraged Ukrainian pro-western policy at the expense of the Donbass and tried to woo Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Add to that deploying Anti-ballistic missile launching sites in Poland and Romania and deploying combat troops into Ukraine and the Russians have reached the end of their tolerance for western encroachment.

If Canada, Mexico, Serbia or Greece decided to realign themselves away from the West and move closely into a pro-Russian position, allowing the Russians to deploy troops and missile bases along the 49th parallel, south of the Rio Grande, or in the belly of the Balkans do you think that the West would just shrug and concede that they are sovereign nations who can align themselves as they see fit? No, such realignments would be vigorously opposed by all means necessary and would likely trigger western military action.

The pending deployment of 500 US National Guardsmen from Oklahoma, two combat teams of which are reportedly to be deployed into the Donbass is the kind of hair-brained arrogance which could trigger a war in Russia's backyard.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Yeah, we're getting into the problem of Empire: Buffer states, as they get more and more tied into whatever empire economically and culturally, cease being buffer states and become part of the empire that must be protected. So now the empire needs new buffer states to protect the former buffer states.

And this pattern then repeats with the new buffer states.

"(Heavy sarcasm intended, and I get he want just the opposite, but couldn't resist the more logical country that should be eligible for reparations – not to mention the Indonesians and Dutch whose aircraft and civilians were criminally shot out of the sky by a Russian SPAA SAM launcher, by their Russian-backed proxy forces.)"

Did the commander of the AAM battery get a decoration from Russia?