“Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” - Former US President, George W. Bush.
Those words were spoken nine days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC. They were intended to unite the civilized world against the threat of global terrorism and they could never ring more hollow than they do today, following three near-simultaneous terrorist attacks on the Russian Federation, allegedly supported and funded by the same government that was attacked nearly 23 years ago.
Following the Sevastopol attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused NATO nations of being behind the attack.
“We clearly see who is behind this. Just last week, the President talked about who targets these technologically complex missiles and who ensures their launches. It’s not the Ukrainians,” Peskov told reporters. “You could turn to your colleagues in the media. Simply ask my colleagues, the press secretaries in Europe, and especially in Washington, why their government is killing Russian children.”
As the attack on Sevastopol occurred, a US RQ-4 Global Hawk was flying over the Black Sea, just south of Crimea.
On Monday, retired CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson told Sputnik that he suspects Western intelligence services are behind the Dagestan attacks as well. “I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that you had the attack in Sevastopol coincide with this series of attacks in Dagestan,” he said. “At a minimum, it would have been a CIA incitement. But you can’t rule out there was actual contact training.”
Retired senior security analyst at the US Office of the Secretary of Defense Michael Maloof agreed that the attacks were likely connected to the West.
“Ukrainians know they can’t win on the battlefield. So, they’re going to instigate, with US support, this insurgency that now calls for shooting missiles deep inside Russian territory and killing civilians. There seems to be a calculated effort now to aim at civilians and the US government is now supporting that,” Maloof noted on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour, adding that “The fact that the Pentagon last night had no comment about that development is proof positive that their hands are bloodied.”
Washington’s silence is a departure from the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack. After that event, Washington was slow to offer condemnation of the attack but eventually did. Russia also accused Ukraine and the West of being behind that attack.
The use of terror is not a new tactic by the United States. The so-called “shock-and-awe” campaign in Baghdad targeted civilian infrastructure, killing more than 6,600 civilians in just the invasion portion of the Iraq War. Still, for decades, the US has at least publicly decried terrorism. That began to change when the US started supporting terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda*, in Syria. Suddenly, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” became “If you are with us, you are not a terrorist.”
That policy has come into full force in Ukraine, where despite Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov admitting in an interview last year that Kiev was behind the terrorist assassinations of Russians, including a car bombing assassination of a Russian journalist, US President Joe Biden has continued to offer full support for the Kiev regime.
“The fact that a drone was there providing the intelligence and data, and the use of ATACMS missiles, which requires US participation, clearly shows the escalation by the United States now. Not only to give basically the green light in attacking civilians but also now what we saw in Dagestan, where we saw all of a sudden a rise up of terrorist activities once again in Dagestan,” Maloof explained. “It has a history of that, but it’s all calculated.”
Russian authorities have been reserved in their responses to previous Western escalations, but this one will require a significant response.
“I think it’s gonna be a step-by-step ratcheting up. I think we’re going to see a response to what happened in Crimea and even in Dagestan, now knowing where the fingerprints lie, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will probably make a decision to escalate with greater missile attacks inside of Ukraine,” said Maloof, adding that he doesn’t think Russia will “go full blast trying to destroy Kiev.”
“I think [Putin] is going to start taking out these drones. I suspect that this will be his way of responding to the US escalation, by escalating against those instruments used by the United States to help pinpoint targets,” Maloof continued. “If that isn’t sufficient, then I think the bases throughout the Middle East could be potential targets.”
However, Maloof predicts that the Russian president will take a slow approach, ratcheting up “very slowly.”
“I think that he’s also counting on [there to] be a change of government in the United States come November. So, I think he’s sort of waiting that out,” Maloof predicted.
“Now we have two [wars] within just this administration that have intensified to the point that we are on the brink of something much greater and much more serious than we have ever seen since World War II,“ he lamented earlier in the interview, referring to both Ukraine and Palestine.
*A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.