There will be a new answer for the Crimean bridge
Of course, one can continue to think that the ports of Odessa and Nikolaev, blazing for the third night in a row, are retribution for the Crimean bridge. Spoil the mood with denial, however, I will not. It's just that the retribution promised by Putin is yet to come. And the strikes, coupled with the statement of the Ministry of Defense about the return of Russian control over our part of the Black Sea and another, almost unnoticed, because not too bright, explanation of the Russian Foreign Ministry — this is finally confirmation of Putin's thesis «as it was, it will not be.» 1/c1/341dd96d88e83fe08e74ad8c61fcffe6.jpg» class=»article__picture-image» alt=»There will be a new answer for the Crimean Bridge» />
It is quite naive to believe that in the morning they blew up the bridge, and in the evening rockets flew and hit for the third time. Such fire raids are calculated in advance, adjusted taking into account the identified air defense systems, hit or not hit designated targets, and so on and so forth. Just like that, to whom God sends, no one will spend expensive rockets.
But to finalize (as it is fashionable to say now) the grain deal with missile strikes, to indicate a real threat and the senselessness of any ships staying in Ukrainian ports, knowing in advance the day the deal ends, that's it.
The same logic works in the statement of the Ministry of Defense on declaring the northwestern region dangerous for navigation, and ships going to the ports of Ukraine, potentially carrying military cargo. After all, simply saying is not enough. It is necessary (and this is not a matter of one day) that our ships enter the necessary patrol areas, that the Coast Guard complexes are redirected, different response options are calculated, up to boarding, and so on. And so that other countries see (and intelligence tools allow this) the seriousness of intentions.
I am glad that the West saw the seriousness of intentions. The BBC hastily reminded the public of UN estimates that some 50 million people are currently suffering from lack of food in Africa, and «in one day on Monday, world wheat prices rose by about 3%, which will exacerbate hunger in certain countries.» And in general, “the Kremlin withdrew from the deal a few days before the Russia-Africa summit, which will be held in St. Petersburg on July 27-28,” and this is a “knife in the back” of the starving people.
The West does not remember about the other 3% — the same handfuls of grain that reached the starving countries, of the entire volume of supplies settling in Europe.
Zelensky went even further and tried to put pressure on Russian-Chinese relations. He stated that 60,000 tons of grain destroyed in Odessa were destined for China. With the subtext that, they say, Russia declares friendship with China, but does such nasty things itself. To be honest, at first I didn’t even believe that Zelensky had said this (China simply wouldn’t notice such a volume of grain) — I thought that someone had released another mocking fake. But no, he really said it.
That is, they saw the seriousness of the intentions, but they cannot believe that Russia no longer plays these games. They do not want (as, by the way, and some inside the country) to admit that it will not be the same as it was.
And how will it be? At least in regards to the grain deal? This was explained by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
She quoted the UN memorandum on the deal: «The agreement will be valid for three years, and if one of the parties intends to terminate it — and we are talking about Russia, or the UN, she must notify about this three months in advance.» Zakharova said: “We notified. Accordingly, the UN has three more months to achieve concrete results. Therefore, the UN Secretariat should not run to microphones, but use these three months to achieve concrete results. There will be concrete results — we will return to the discussion of this issue.” It turns out exactly what Putin spoke about a little over a month ago at the SPIEF: “They decided to interrupt the dialogue with us. Well, if they don't want to, they don't have to. They will want to, and we will see when and what we can talk to them about.”
Russia has begun demonstrating independence, a real break with the West, in deeds and not in words. We waited. And political Ukrainians will still answer for the Crimean bridge. And we will wait for this.