The mini-missile crisis in Russian-Ukrainian relations fortunately did not lead to any incidents on December 1, the first day of shootings over the Black Sea that Ukraine began. These shootings are due to end on Friday.

On November 30, Ukraine sent out an amended notification of the closure of its airspace, which no longer included Russia's territorial waters in Crimea (this fact caused the greatest indignation among the Russian authorities). The newspaper Ukrainska Pravda published an addendum to the military-diplomatic note of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which undoubtedly led to this effect. Although the document was widely distributed, it is difficult to resist quoting it. "If the launched missiles pose a threat to Russian facilities located in this area of the territory of the Russian Federation (on land, at sea or in the airspace), retaliatory strikes will be carried out to destroy their launch vehicles. The Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defense <...> takes this opportunity to renew the assurances of its highest consideration to the Office of the Defense Attaché at the Embassy of Ukraine in the Russian Federation."

It appears that the document is genuine – the Ukrainian side cited it in the official notification, obscuring, however, the issue of the fact that the threats of the Ministry of Defense concerned the missiles flying into Russian territory, including territorial waters, and not the entire closed zone. It is also not surprising that the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, having declared the launches successful, stated that they would be carried out “regardless of any statements by Moscow.” Nevertheless, the fact of the movement of the borders of the closed zone can be verified by anyone who tries to put the coordinates from the Ukrainian notification on a map.

The "gun" that was attached to the "kind word" of the Defense Ministry's International Cooperation Directorate was the S-300V system, the transfer of which to Crimea was perhaps demonstratively shown on Tuesday. It is indeed optimized for missile defense tasks and is currently the longest-range air defense system in Russia. However, experts believe that intercepting the missiles that Ukraine tested is a very non-trivial task, and in relation to the S-300PS anti-aircraft missiles that the Ukrainians launched, this interception is generally possible with a high probability only if the firing and interception are controlled from one center. But a strike on the launchers is much simpler.

With a kind word and a gun