Ilya Tsukanov – SPUTNIK.com May 4, 2023

Drone strike on the Kremlin. Click to enlarge

The Ukrainian proxy war between the West and Russia escalated hours after midnight on Wednesday after a pair of drones believed to have been launched by Ukraine targeted the Kremlin. Commenting on the escalation, former CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson said it’s a sign that Washington’s Ukraine policy is “in freefall.”

The United States is responsible for the drone attack on the Kremlin because “decisions on such attacks are made not in Kiev, but in Washington,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Washington should understand clearly that we know this,” the spokesman told reporters Thursday.

Wednesday’s brazen attack on the Kremlin, thought to have been targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, was foiled by local electronic warfare systems, which disabled and down the pair of unmanned aerial vehicles before they could reach their final targets. Moscow vowed to retaliate at a time and place of its choosing, with authorities in Kiev reporting the most extensive Russian aid raids since the start of the year on Thursday.

Ukraine’s authorities earlier sheepishly denied involvement, disingenuously claiming that Kiev has limited its attacks to the “fight on our territory,” a remark in clear contradiction to previous similar drone attacks in Crimea, Belgorod and Voronezh, the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, and a base used by Russian strategic aviation in Engels, Saratov region.

Larry Johnson said the attempted attack on the Kremlin is highly “symbolic,” even if it’s “tactically insignificant.”

“[It] didn’t cause significant damage. The psychological impact, though, there are people that disagree on this, my view is that this is going to galvanize Russia, not create fear or discontent or division. There are others who believe that by doing this, it is going to portray Russia as weak and create internal problems. I simply note that the reactions of former [Russian] President [Dmitry] Medvedev, as well as members of the Duma – they are livid, they are outraged, and calling for escalatory retaliation against Ukraine. So I think in many respects this backfired,” the former CIA intelligence officer and State Department official told Sputnik.

Johnson believes Kiev may have targeted the Kremlin deliberately to provoke Russia into a major escalation, thus allowing the US to intervene in the conflict directly.

“Ukraine at this point is in a very desperate situation, and they’re looking for any way out. And I think they perceive as one of the only ways out is to get the United States more deeply involved in this conflict,” the observer explained.

“At the same time, I think, Washington correctly notes that they try to discourage this [escalation], because they recognize that it’s spun out of control. And the United States is in no position militarily to confront Russia and survive that confrontation,” Johnson said.

Unfortunately, the veteran intelligence officer noted, US President Joe Biden’s entire foreign policy team has been “relentless in their desire to confront Russia,” risking further escalation of the conflict rather than de-escalation.

“They’re trying to put a band aid on a sucking chest wound, the policy basically, the US policy in Ukraine and foreign policy across the board, is in collapse. It’s in freefall. The United States is not accomplishing its goals,” Johnson argued, pointing to Washington’s decision to send over $120 billion into a “black hole” in Ukraine and failing to achieve “any of the results that it had anticipated,” like the collapse of Russia or regime change.

Asked how Washington would react in a similar situation if the White House was attacked by a US adversary, Johnson said there was no need to guess the outcome as the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks temporarily erased the partisan divide and united the US public in support of “any planned military operation by the government.”

Source