The stakes in this game are quite high.
Moscow has grown increasingly brazen amid a campaign of sabotage and provocations targeting the West. The tempo of attacks on Western targets is also increasing, as is Moscow’s appetite for risk. The gravest recent offense involved a Russian drone strike on a train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson just miles from the Polish border. Former CIA director David Petraeus was another potential target of Russian aggression, as the New York Times reported:
David Petraeus, the former C.I.A. director, could hear the Russian drones above his train, which had just passed through Ukrainian customs on its way to Poland on Sunday morning. He and other passengers were quickly evacuated. Not long after, he heard a huge explosion.
A former U.S. Army general, Mr. Petraeus is used to explosions, but he said: “For those who have not been under fire, this was terrifying.” A jet-powered Russian drone, identified by photos taken afterward, had detonated after striking the locomotive of the train next to his, he said.
“This is the act of a truly barbaric leader trying to terrorize Ukrainian civilians,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday.
This is the sort of reckless attack that, if it had succeeded, could inspire a cascading reaction from the West that might take on a logic all its own. Rather than intimidate the West into submission, the Kremlin’s miscalculation could compel the West to respond proportionately, after which Russia would respond with its own face-saving response against Western assets. And on it goes as we ascend the escalation ladder. The stakes in this game are quite high.
More troublingly, Russia does not seem to be limiting its campaign of subterfuge to the European continent.
In a press release late Tuesday night, the Justice Department detailed charges against Kremlin assets who set out to commission targeted killings and other terroristic acts inside America. Although not yet in custody, the defendants are accused of serving as “high-ranking” officials within the “RIS network,” which has links to Russia’s domestic security and military intelligence services. Their goal was to spill blood and sow chaos inside the U.S.
Via the DOJ:
Most recently, this summer, the RIS Network recruited an individual based in the United States (“U.S. Resident-1”) to surveil and murder a prominent Russian dissident they believed to be residing in the United States. Among other things, SUAREZ sent U.S. Resident-1 two locations associated with Victim-1 to surveil; provided U.S. Resident-1 with explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance; and promised U.S. Resident-1 between $1,000 and $1,500 to carry out the pre-operational surveillance. In turn, U.S. Resident-1 conducted the requested surveillance and passed back to SUAREZ multiple photographs and videos of locations associated with Victim-1. SUAREZ and CASTRO further offered U.S. Resident-1 $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” Victim-1 and, when U.S. Resident-1 told them that he did not want to carry out the murder by his own hand, asked U.S. Resident-1 if he knew “someone [who] can do the work.” SUAREZ also told U.S. Resident-1 that he had “people in Mexico” who could otherwise carry out the murder, but they were delayed in doing so. In addition, SUAREZ attempted to recruit multiple other individuals within the United States to conduct pre-operational surveillance and murder Victim-1 and other potential targets within the United States, and offered them substantial sums of money to carry out the targeting of the U.S.-based victims.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg couldn’t have been more succinct in his summary of the Russian plot. “These defendants allegedly operated as part of a global assassination network that reached into the United States,” he said, “attempting to recruit U.S. citizens and foreigners to carry out killings at the behest of the Kremlin.”
This development might provide the Trump administration with an opportunity to focus on the real threat to international security in Eastern Europe. This week, the president chided the Ukrainian government for executing long-range drone strikes on Russian petroleum processing facilities. Trump accused Kyiv of contributing to high diesel fuel costs in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The problem isn’t Ukraine’s response to Russian aggression. The problem is the Russian aggression. The conquest of Ukraine would only be stage one in the Kremlin’s ultimate quest to break the NATO alliance and eject the U.S. from its presence in Europe. That has been Moscow’s grand strategic objective since 1945. The Kremlin’s violation of U.S. sovereignty represents an opportunity for this White House to open its eyes to the real threat to American interests. The Trump administration should take it.