{"id":65357,"date":"2016-04-21T06:45:01","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T10:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=65357"},"modified":"2016-04-21T06:03:18","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T10:03:18","slug":"65357","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=65357","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s Military Gets “Frisky”, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sure that everyone’s heard that earlier this week, the POTUS called Russia\u2019s President, Vladimir Putin.\u00a0 While he did not address the recent incidents where Russian military aircraft “buzzed” US ships<\/em><\/a> and aircraft<\/em><\/a> during the call, the POTUS apparently did ask Putin to \u201cmaintain the cease fire in Syria\u201d.<\/p>\n

Well, it appears the POTUS now has his answer.<\/p>\n

Per a US defense official, Russia has moved the bulk of its forces in Syria to the vicinity of Aleppo<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 The official further indicated an offensive to retake Aleppo from Syrian rebels \u201cis poised to take place soon\u201d.\u00a0 Local fighting has apparently already resumed in the Aleppo area, and Russian bombing in support of Assad\u2019s forces has been occurring since November – cease-fire or no cease-fire.<\/p>\n

I don’t think it’s exactly rocket science to figure out why Russian forces in Syria just relocated.<\/p>\n

US officials also report that “hundreds” of new Iranian troops are also now in Syria.\u00a0 Given Iran\u2019s past support for Assad’s regime, I\u2019m guessing they\u2019re probably not<\/u> there to support the Syrian rebels.<\/p>\n

Now, about those “buzzing” incidents: while the POTUS and Putin didn’t discuss them during their PHONECON, they’ve also returned to the news this week. The Russian Ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, met with the NATO-Russia council yesterday – for the first time in 2 years. Afterwards, Grushko publicly accused the US of trying to “intimidate” Russia by conducting naval operations with our allies in international waters in the Baltic<\/em><\/a>. He then went on to say that Russia would take “all necessary measures” in response to future such encounters.<\/p>\n

Yep. Looks to me like Putin has once again given the POTUS the finger – with both hands – followed shortly afterwards by mooning.\u00a0 But this time, I believe Putin shouted something in Russian just before \u201cshooting the moon\u201d.\u00a0 The first two parts sounded something like \u201cyob\u201d and \u201cti-voy-you\u201d, respectively.\u00a0 Not sure I caught the last part correctly, but I think it sounded something like “Matt”.<\/p>\n

Your move again, Mr. President.<\/p>\n

My prediction:\u00a0 look for yet another ineffectual but \u201cstrongly worded” diplomatic protest by the State Department after the Syrian-Russian offensive near Aleppo begins – and that’s it.\u00a0 I\u2019ll frankly be shocked if we do anything more than that.<\/p>\n

I wonder if Putin – or anyone else in his inner circle – has pulled a muscle or otherwise injured himself from laughing at us. I know their sides must ache terribly by now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sure that everyone’s heard that earlier this week, the POTUS called Russia\u2019s President, Vladimir Putin.\u00a0 … Russia\u2019s Military Gets “Frisky”, Part 3<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,9,238,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-foreign-policy","category-government-incompetence","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}