Russia’s Second-Ever Use Of The Oreshniks Was A Response To Three Recent Provocations
These are Ukraine’s attempted assassination of Putin right before New Year’s, France and the UK’s official plans to deploy troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed to, and the US’ seizure of a Russian-flagged tanker in the Atlantic.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Friday morning that the Oreshniks were used for the second time ever after several were fired at targets in Lvov Region. Reports indicate that the Stryi gas field and gas storage facility were among those that were hit. The first time that the Oreshniks were used was in November 2024 after the US and UK allowed Ukraine to use their long-range missiles for strikes deep inside of Russia. Three recent provocations were arguably responsible for their second-ever use.
The confirmation above explicitly mentioned that Ukraine’s attempted large-scale attack against Putin’s residence in Russia’s Novgorod Region right before New Year’s was what prompted this retaliation. About that, it was assessed that “The CIA Is Manipulating Trump Against Putin” after he flipflopped from believing Putin’s claim that this attack was an assassination attempt to believing the CIA chief’s that it supposedly only targeted a nearby military site, so this can be interpreted as Putin’s retort to Trump.
Moving along, even though the Russian Defense Ministry didn’t mention any other recent provocations as being responsible for their country’s second-ever use of the Oreshniks, it can be reasonably argued that Putin probably had two others in mind too when he gave the authorization for this latest strike. These are France and the UK’s official plans to deploy troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed to as well as the US’ seizure of a Russian-flagged tanker in the Atlantic. Each are provocative in their own way.
Putin himself warned as recently as September that Russia would deem Western troops in Ukraine “legitimate targets for destruction.” Although “SVR Revealed That British & French Troops Are Already In Odessa” later that same month, that’s not comparable to the conventional deployment that those two committed to. Even more concerning, Witkoff backed their plans, thus possibly making Russia wonder whether the US might reverse its official position that Article 5 won’t extend to NATO troops in Ukraine.
As for the third provocation that Putin probably had in mind when he authorized Russia’s second-ever use of the Oreshniks, the US’ seizure of a Russian-flagged tanker in the Atlantic carried the painful optics of the first extraterritorially imposing its domestic law on the second. If Russia didn’t send a strong message afterwards, however indirect and asymmetrical, then the US might be emboldened to seize more of Russia’s “shadow fleet” elsewhere across the world including in the Baltic and Black Seas.
These last two admittedly speculative motives behind the latest Oreshnik strike explain why targets in Lvov Region were hit instead of others anywhere else across Ukraine. Russia arguably wanted to show France, the UK, and their shared US patron that it’s capable of swiftly hitting targets within NATO without detection if the need arises. This could occur if an unprecedented crisis follows the first two’s planned troop deployment to Ukraine or the US’ hypothetical seizure of more Russian ships does the same.
Putin is almost pathologically averse to escalating in Ukraine due to the risk that it could spiral out of control into World War III so it’s significant that he just authorized the second-ever use of the Oreshniks in spite of that. He didn’t even do this after Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb”, which Trump might have known about in advance, targeted Russia’s nuclear triad last summer. This shows how seriously he’s taking Ukraine’s attempted assassination of him and probably the other two provocations too.
It's precisely because US planners think that Poutine is "pathologically" against a rise of tensions that they dare all what they dare.
About the seizure of russian tanker, today , russian MoForeign Affairs says clearly that Russia fears that "others" country( it quote UK) follow this example with all the consequences possible.
With lunatic Baltes, with dumb Pôles, with arrogant British, Germans, French and Scandinavians, one can expect at this kind of seizure in Baltic sea, Black Sea, North Atlantic or Mediterranean.
Dear Andrew, just an idea.
I notice that some french AMC "analysts" I've followed have a blog too on substack or other and they have less than 10 posts after their articles and seemingly not much readers.
However.
However, both have a YouTube channel with more than 30000 subscribers for one and more than 50000 for the second.
I really don't like video for serious stuff. It's lazy, endless, boring and useless compared to a good text well written you can read in less than 10 minutes.
However.
However, lazy people are legions and more and more morons don't read no more. And there's also a lot of busy people who like to listen the video in driving, cleaning or cooking.
Have you already thought to tell your text in a short video and a YouTube (or other) channel?
And if you don't want to appear on the video, you can do like most of news TV and take an atomic Moscow blond to read it in front of the camera ( Joke. I specify because some followers of this blog need spiked helmet to understand humor)