The US State Department has once once again re-issued an urgent advisory warning Americans not to travel to Russia. The renewed travel advisory also tells any American citizens currently in Russia to depart immediately.
It cites the danger associated with the ongoing war with Ukraine, as well as the significant risk of wrongful detention by Russian officials, and the possibility of terrorism.
This is nothing new, given such warnings have been issued going all the way back to February 2022, but it suggests that the Trump administration's view is that things might continue to escalate as efforts toward a peace deal stall.
"Russian officials often question and threaten U.S. citizens without reason. Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on false charges. They have denied them fair treatment and convicted them without credible evidence. Russian authorities have opened questionable investigations against U.S. citizens for their religious activities," the advisory reads.
This joins no less than five fresh advisories reissued by the department since Dec. 18. They include Level 4: Do Not Travel warnings for Belarus and Yemen, as well a Level 2 warning for Jordan due to terrorism, and a Level 1 advisory for Portugal.
Currently the State Department also has active Do Not Travel warnings for Venezuela, Syria, Haiti, Ukraine, and several other countries.
One thing the official Russia travel warning leaves out is the fact that the CIA continues to assist Ukraine in actively targeting Russian territory, especially energy sites.
Even as the Pentagon has taken steps to draw down its support, the CIA has been ramping up its anti-Russia covert actions launched out of Ukraine, as The NY Times this week highlighted:
Where Mr. Hegseth had marginalized his Ukraine-supporting generals, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Ratcliffe, had consistently protected his own officers’ efforts for Ukraine. He kept the agency’s presence in the country at full strength; funding for its programs there even increased. When Mr. Trump ordered the March aid freeze, the U.S. military rushed to shut down all intelligence sharing. But when Mr. Ratcliffe explained the risk facing C.I.A. officers in Ukraine, the White House allowed the agency to keep sharing intelligence about Russian threats inside Ukraine.
Now, the agency honed a plan to at least buy time, to make it harder for the Russians to capitalize on the Ukrainians’ extraordinary moment of weakness.
"Brilliant" or foolhardy and stupid to keep poking the nuclear-armed Russian bear?
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