In an interview published today with ilsussidiario.net portal, Italian military expert and director of Analisi Difesa Gianandrea Gaiani remarked that the ATACMS that hit Crimea are guided by drones based in the U.S. airbase in Sigonella, Sicily. “The use of the ATACMS … involves extensive U.S. technical support: They are used with HIMARS launchers and the attack is brought forward by a drone flying over the Black Sea. Drones take off from the Sicilian base at Sigonella and act as scouts and missile guidance.”
Gaiani added, “The U.S. may also have re-deployed them from Greece, however, their main headquarters is Sigonella. They are long-range strategic reconnaissance drones, called Global Hawk.”
Legally, the Sigonella air base is U.S. territory and therefore Italy is formally not involved in the war. Gaiani does not say so, but the whole thing has an overtone of complicity. (When Italy was half-sovereign, then-Prime Minister Aldo Moro famously forbade the U.S. Air Force to fly through Italian airspace in missions to Vietnam.)
According to Gaiani, Russia is conducting a “wear and tear war” in Ukraine, which has already yielded political results. “Russia may not necessarily have an interest in unleashing a decisive offensive on Ukraine. It aims to constantly attrite Ukrainian forces, which has shown the inadequacy of Western aid. The U.S. accuses North Korea, one of the poorest countries in the world, of giving 5 million artillery shells to Russia, loaded onto 11,000 containers on as many railroad cars. Assuming this is true, it all makes a mockery of the fact that the very rich Europe, a year and a half after promising to supply Ukraine with one million rounds of artillery shells, has not yet been able to fulfill it and may do so within the year.
