US, Russia trade rhetoric, edge toward showdown over Syria

When the U.S. fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield a year ago after a chemical weapons attack, the Pentagon gave Moscow advance warning to get its personnel out of harm's way.

Since then, U.S.-Russian relations have soured, and the two nuclear powers have raised the ante, getting dangerously close to a potential military clash in Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov prepare to toast at a ceremony of receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. President Donald Trump has taunted Moscow to "get ready" for "nice and new and 'smart'" missiles coming to punish Syria for a purported chemical attack on Saturday that killed at least 40 people. The tweet followed Russia's warning that it will strike at incoming U.S. missiles and their launch platforms.

The defiant posture leaves both the White House and the Kremlin with fewer options to respond without losing face.

A stern statement last month by Russia's top military officer effectively drew a red line on any U.S. strike. Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said Russian military officers are at Syrian facilities throughout the country and warned that "if a threat to our servicemen emerges, the Russian armed forces will take retaliatory measures against both missiles and their carriers."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, foreground, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov prepare to toast at a ceremony of receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP)

Some say the U.S. could launch a limited strike like it did in April 2017, when it hit Syria's Shayrat airfield with cruise missiles after warning Russia. Such a scenario would allow Washington to claim it made good on its promise to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad without triggering a clash with Russia.

A pinpoint U.S. strike on Syrian targets that does not harm Russian personnel "will allow Trump to say that the Assad regime has paid a heavy price ... and Russia in its turn will be able to limit itself to ringing statements," said Fyodor Lukyanov, the head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, an association of top Russian political and security experts.

FILE - This Sunday, April 8, 2018 file image made from video released by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows medical workers treating toddlers following an alleged poison gas attack in the opposition-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File)

He added, however, that the U.S. would be unlikely to warn Russia of the coming strike this time.

"The context of the relations has changed radically in the past year: We're in a state of a real and tangible Cold War," Lukyanov said.

Moscow's hopes of warmer ties with Washington under Trump have been shattered by the ongoing U.S. investigations of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and its potential ties with the Trump campaign. The Trump administration has ramped up sanctions against Russia and expelled dozens of diplomats. Tensions between the two countries have escalated on a broad range of issues — from the crisis in Ukraine to the war in Syria to the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain, which triggered the massive diplomatic war.

FILE - EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - This Sunday, April. 8, 2018 file image released by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows victims of an alleged chemical weapons attack collapsed on the floor of a building in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File)

President Vladimir Putin's top adviser, Vladislav Surkov said in an article released earlier this week that Russia has abandoned its centuries-long aspirations of integrating into the West and is bracing for a new era of "geopolitical loneliness." Surkov warned that "it's going to be tough," but added cryptically that "it'll be fun."

Opinions vary about what may happen in Syria.

"The situation is pretty bad, but it shouldn't be overdramatized," Alexei Malashenko, a leading Russian expert on Syria said in televised remarks. "I don't believe that a clash between Russia and the U.S. is possible."

Washington and Moscow both have said that a hotline established in 2015 to prevent incidents between their militaries in Syria has worked well, but the rising stakes make the situation more unstable than ever during the Syrian conflict.

FILE - This file photo provided March 15, 2016, by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, a lineup of Russian troops is held before withdrawal at Hemeimeem air base in Syria. With the Middle East on edge and many fearing inadvertent triggering of regional war, it is easy to forget that two weeks ago Trump shocked advisers in declaring an intention to withdraw troops from Syria. (Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

Under one possible scenario, Russia may try to use its sophisticated electronic warfare systems deployed in Syria to make U.S. missiles veer off course without shooting them down. If that softer option doesn't work, the Russian military could use an array of its state-of-the-art air defense assets in Syria to target the U.S. cruise missiles or drones.

Vyacheslav Nikonov, a senior lawmaker in the Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament, said in televised remarks that the Russian military was getting its electronic countermeasures and air defense assets ready for action. He added on a combative note that the situation offers a "good chance to test them in conditions of real combat."

An even more threatening situation may evolve if the U.S. and its allies use manned aircraft, and the Russian strike results in casualties.

FILE - This file Dec. 12, 2017 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the troops at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria. With the Middle East on edge and many fearing inadvertent triggering of regional war, it is easy to forget that two weeks ago Trump shocked advisers in declaring an intention to withdraw troops from Syria. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Such a scenario could trigger a quick escalation, leaving Russia and the U.S. on the brink of a full-scale conflict — a situation unseen even during the darkest moments of the Cold War.

Retired Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky, the former chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's international department, warned that Russia has thousands of military advisers in Syria "practically in every battalion," and a strike on any Syrian facility could jeopardize their lives. He warned that Russia and the U.S. will quickly find themselves in a major conflict if they allow a collision in Syria to happen.

"I have an impression that Americans' survival instincts have grown numb, if not vanished completely," Buzhinsky said. "They seem not to really believe that Russia will give a tough military response and expect some sort of a local brawl, exchanging some minor blows. It's a miscalculation. Any clash between Russian and U.S. militaries will expand beyond a local conflict and an escalation will be inevitable."

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses newly-arrived foreign ambassadors as he received their credentials during a ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Andrei Klimov, the head of an upper house committee that investigates foreign meddling in Russian affairs, proudly said on the top talk show on Russian state TV that his relative, a Soviet pilot, won a medal for combat duty in Vietnam. Klimov pointed to heavy U.S. losses from Soviet missiles and jets in Vietnam, adding that Russia stands ready to counter any possible U.S. strike.

Unlike the Vietnam War, where Soviet advisers helping North Vietnam supposedly weren't directly engaged in combat, the potential clash in Syria would pit Russia directly against the U.S.

Fears of war swept Russian newspaper headlines and TV news, with commentators discussing the darkest possible outcomes, including a nuclear war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony of receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

"What if the war starts tomorrow?" the front page of Moskovsky Komsomolets clamored on Wednesday. Russia's best-selling newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda wondered: "Is macho Trump going to start World War III?"

Even former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev weighed in. The 87-year-old former president compared the tensions to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and said he feels "great concern."

Russian troops are ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces to prepare to seize more land this spring and summer as muddy fields dry out and allow tanks, armored vehicles and other heavy equipment to roll to key positions across the countryside.

With the war in Ukraine now in its third year and a vital U.S. aid package for Kyiv slowed down in Congress, Russia has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — which allow planes to drop them from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

Despite Moscow's advantage in firepower and personnel, a massive ground offensive would be risky and — Russian military bloggers other experts say — unnecessary if Russia can stick to smaller attacks across the front line to further drain the Ukraine military.

“It’s potentially a slippery slope where you get like a death by a thousand cuts or essentially death by a thousand localized offensives,” Michael Kofman, a military expert with the Carnegie Endowment, said in a recent podcast to describe the Russian tactic. If the Russians stick to their multiple pushes across the front, he said, “eventually they may find more and more open terrain.”

Last summer’s counteroffensive by Ukraine was doomed when advancing Ukrainian units got trapped on vast Russian minefields and massacred by artillery and drones. The Russians have no reason to make that same mistake.

Last November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered his forces to build trenches, fortifications and bunkers behind the more than 1,000-kilometer front line, but analysts say construction work moved slowly, leaving areas unprotected.

“If the defensive lines had been built in advance, the Ukrainians wouldn’t have retreated in such a way,” Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov said. “We should have been digging trenches through the fall and it would have stemmed Russian advances. Now everything is exposed, making it very dangerous.”

In a recent podcast, Kofman also said that Kyiv is “quite behind on effectively entrenching across the front” and “Ukraine does not have good secondary lines.”

After capturing the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, Russian troops are zeroing in on the hill town of Chasiv Yar, which would allow them to move toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, key cities in the Kyiv-controlled part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions in 2022, and the Kremlin sees fully controlling that region as a priority.

Zhdanov said Ukraine doesn't have the firepower to repel Russian attacks.

“They promised to have a defensive line 10 kilometers (6 miles) behind Avdiivka where our troops could get and dig in, but there is none,” he said.

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, sounded the alarm before Congress last week, warning that Ukraine will be outgunned 10 to one by Russia in a matter of weeks if Congress does not approve more military aid.

After securing another term in a preordained election in March, President Vladimir Putin vowed to carve out a “sanitary zone” to protect Russia's border regions from Ukrainian shelling and incursions.

Putin didn't give any specifics, but Russian military bloggers and security analysts said that along with a slow push across the Donetsk region, Moscow could also try to capture Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, which Russia tried and failed to take in the opening days of the war.

In a possible sign of a looming attack on Kharkiv, a city of 1.1 million about 30 kilometers (some 20 miles) south of the border, Russia has ramped up strikes on power plants in the area, inflicting significant damage and causing blackouts.

Ukraine doesn't have enough air defense to protect Kharkiv and other cities, and the constant Russian strikes are part of Moscow's strategy to “suffocate” it by destroying its infrastructure and forcing its residents to leave, Zhdanov said.

Retired Lt. Gen. Andrei Gurulev, now on the defense committee of Russia’s lower chamber of parliament, acknowledged that capturing Kharkiv is a major challenge, and he predicted the military would try to surround it.

“It can be enveloped and blockaded,” he said, adding that taking Kharkiv would open the way for a push deep into Ukraine and require more Russian troops.

After Putin’s order for “partial mobilization” of 300,000 reservists last fall proved so unpopular that hundreds of thousands fled abroad to avoid being drafted, the Kremlin tried a different approach: It promised relatively high wages and other benefits to beef up its forces with volunteer soldiers. The move appears to have paid off as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the military recruited 540,000 volunteers in 2023.

“There are no plans for a new wave of mobilization,” Viktor Bondarev, deputy head of defense affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, said in remarks carried by state RIA Novosti news agency. “We are doing well with the combat capability that we have.”

Follow AP's coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

FILE - In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on April 9, 2024, Russian soldiers carrying flamethrowers ride an armored vehicle in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Russian troops have been ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces across the front line to prepare to take more land this spring and summer. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers with the 22nd Mechanized Brigade prepare to launch the Poseidon H10 Middle-range drone near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - In this image released by the Russian Defense Ministry on April 9, 2024, Russian soldiers fire flamethrowers at Ukrainian positions in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers with the 71st Jaeger Brigade fire a M101 howitzer at Russian positions on the front line, near the city of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - In this video frame grab released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 26, 2024, a Russian soldier in an undisclosed location fires an anti-tank missile at Ukrainian forces. Russian troops have been ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces across the front line to prepare to take more land this spring and summer. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers carry shells to fire at Russian positions on the front line, near the city of Bakhmut, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, on March 25, 2024. The outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to halt Russian advances as a new U.S. aid package is stuck in Congress. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - Ukrainian National Guard soldiers simulate an assault during tactical training at a shooting range in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Feb. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko, File)

FILE - Ukrainian servicemen with the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade fire a mortar at Russian forces on the front line near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on March 3, 2024. The outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to halt Russian advances as a new U.S. aid package is stuck in Congress. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE – This frame grab from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Feb. 20, 2024, shows one of its Su-25 ground attack jets firing rockets during a mission over Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - In this image released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 19, 2024, Russian soldiers participate in a military exercise somewhere in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - A Ukrainian officer with the 56th Separate Motorized Infantry Mariupol Brigade fires rockets from a pickup truck at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on March 5, 2024. The outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to halt Russian advances as a new U.S. aid package is stuck in Congress. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - In this image taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 21, 2024, a Russian rocket launcher fires at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Russian troops have been ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces across the front line to prepare to take more land this spring and summer. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the annual meeting of Russian Interior Ministry Board in Moscow on April 2, 2024. After securing another term in a preordained election in March, Putin vowed to extend Moscow's gains in Ukraine to carve out a "sanitary zone" protecting Russian border regions from Ukrainian shelling and incursions. (Sergei Savostyanov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE – A Su-25 plane is seen firing rockets over Ukraine in a video frame grab. The video was taken from inside another Su-25 plane and released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Jan. 22, 2024. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)