The United States backed off sending two warships to the Black Sea last week after Russia warned of a naval showdown. Days later, however, Britain is reportedly stepping in with plans to send warships.
Talk about “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”, the proposed British military intervention is a reckless provocation in a situation that is already spiralling out of control.
Violence is exploding in Ukraine’s seven-year civil war between the NATO-backed Kiev regime and ethnic Russians in the eastern Donbas region; Russia has mobilized its army for defence drills, and the US and European Union are expelling Russian diplomats, and vice versa.
Then the British announce they are sending warships to the Black Sea in the coming weeks to “defend” Ukraine against alleged Russian aggression, according to media reports.
Moscow has declared it is going to close off parts of the Black Sea in Russia’s territorial waters to foreign shipping as part of defensive measures. This includes the sea around Crimea, the peninsula which joined the Russian Federation after a referendum in March 2014.
Since the US, Britain, and EU refuse to recognize Crimea as legitimate Russian territory – always referring to it as “annexed” by Russia from Ukraine – it is possible that British warships will try to ignore Moscow’s naval restrictions in the Black Sea. If an incursion occurs, it could spark a military confrontation between Russia and NATO-member Britain. Then in that case all bets are off for a wider war between nuclear powers.
The folly evokes the Charge of the Light Brigade when British cavalry was slaughtered during the 1853-56 Crimean War fighting against Russia.
British rulers are prioritizing the dispatch of warships “to confront” Russia in the Black Sea. The criminal recklessness of it is astounding. Of course, part to the logic is to distract public anger with an overseas adventure, in a time-honoured British imperialist fashion.
In a recent foreign policy review, the British government labelled Russia as “an acute threat”. And it made all sorts of bravado statements about “deterring” Russia’s “hostility”. Moscow slammed the British depictions as baseless slander, demonizing Russia without any foundation.
Britain has already sent naval forces to “support” the Kiev regime and recently deployed SAS commando units to back the Ukrainian army in its fight against ethnic Russians defending their Donbas territory.
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