Sputnik published a long article yesterday apparently based on extensive interviews with Scott Ritter and David T. Pyne, U.S. military strategy analysts, both of whom have recently participated in policy dialogues with the Schiller Institute. The theme of the article is the tension between the Biden administration and the Kiev regime over how and whether to expand the war against Russia, including on the U.S. reluctance to supply the regime with longer range weapons than it has done so far. Among the points they both made is that U.S. complaints about Russian bombing civilian infrastructure in Ukraine are completely hypocritical.
Ritter refuted the notion that Russia is a “terrorist state” because of the recent attacks on infrastructure. “Any effort by the West to spin what Russia’s done into a war crime is factually incorrect,” he said, stressing that Russia’s military strategy has never been aimed at “punishing” Ukrainian civilians. “This wasn’t inflicting horrific damage on Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukraine didn’t lose any power generation capability or anything of that nature.”
The first thing one needs to understand about Russia’s strikes is that the damage that was done was not permanent in nature, Ritter said, adding that most of the targeted electric facilities were back up and running within 24 hours. Likewise, the way Russia attacked the dam, “it can be readily repaired and the situation returned to normal in a relatively short amount of time.” This means that “the Russian targeting was very precise” being “a surgical use of military force to shape the battlefield so that Russia could rebuild its defense,” according to the military analyst.
