Syrian apple of discord

Less than two weeks before the likely meeting of the American and Russian presidents in Hamburg at the G-20 summit - there is still no absolute clarity on this matter - Russian-American relations are once again teetering on the verge of a direct military confrontation. Washington said it had intelligence of a new chemical attack being prepared by the Assad regime and warned that if the Syrian president decides to carry out another "mass killing with chemical weapons", he will pay a "high price" for it. At the same time, the United States will consider not only the Syrian dictator guilty. As Nikki Haley, U.S. Special Representative to the UN, wrote on her Twitter, “Any future attacks against the people of Syria will be held responsible for Assad, and for Russia and Iran, who support him by killing innocent people.”

The United States' retaliation for the previous chemical attack was a missile attack on the Shayrat government airbase. I note that at that time the Russian-American memorandum on the prevention of incidents in Syrian airspace was still in force. The US military has warned its Russian counterparts about the impending Tomahawk attack.

Since then, Moscow has managed to withdraw from this memorandum twice. The first time, by “punishing” the United States for the strike on the Shayrat, the second time two weeks ago in retaliation for the Syrian plane shot down by an American fighter. At the same time, the Russian military department issued a threatening statement, promising that “in the areas of combat missions carried out by Russian aviation in the sky of Syria, any air objects, including aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles of the international coalition, detected west of the Euphrates River, will be accepted for escort by Russian ground and air defense systems. defense as aerial targets.

All this threatens, as The New York Times rightly noted, that another war will grow out of one: from the civil war in Syria - a military conflict between Russia and the United States. For no one knows what will happen when Russian air defense radars “capture” American Tomahawks.

The Kremlin seems to be beginning to realize the seriousness of the situation. Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, contrary to custom, refrained from making statements about a "provocation being prepared by Washington". He only disputed that the White House statement referred to “another chemical attack,” since, according to the Kremlin, there was no impartial investigation into the previous tragedy.

Sadly, the relationship between Russia and the United States today depends on the degree of recklessness of the participants in the civil war in Syria

Meanwhile, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov hurriedly went to Syria, where he met with Bashar al-Assad at the Khmeimim airbase. According to the official report, during their meeting, they discussed only "observance of the ceasefire regime as part of the implementation of the memorandum on the creation of de-escalation zones," and issues of coordinating actions in the fight against terrorists. However, it is safe to assume that it was primarily about the American ultimatum. And, most likely, Gerasimov was sent to prevent a chemical attack from the side of Damascus troops.

Sadly, the relationship between Russia and the United States today depends on the degree of recklessness of the participants in the civil war in Syria. At the same time, Russia itself is sinking deeper and deeper into the Syrian sands. Until recently, it seemed that its participation in the conflict was caused by ideological reasons, the desire of the Kremlin to resist "color revolutions" throughout the world. However, judging by media reports, businessmen close to Vladimir Putin have also developed a distinct economic interest. Thus, STNG Logistics, a firm associated with Gennady Timchenko, was awarded a contract to restore phosphate deposits in Syria, near Palmyra, and has already begun work with the support of a Russian private military company. And a certain Evro Polis LLC, associated with the “Kremlin cook” Yevgeny Prigozhin, signed a memorandum on oil and gas production in the territories that it undertakes to liberate from “terrorists” by PMC forces (see the material “Syrian oil for the “ Kremlin cook ” on NT site ). All this is reminiscent of the actions in the British East India Company in the XVII-XVIII centuries. That is, colonialism in its purest, unadulterated form...