Is Russia trying to reenact the deadly events of December 7, 1941 as one of its fleets sails off Hawaii or is Vladimir “Joe Biden’s a Punk” Putin merely doing some old-school saber-rattling? This year marks the 80th anniversary of that date of infamy when Japan attacked the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor, so naturally Hawaiians are as antsy as a female staffer asked to come to Andrew Cuomo’s office. The Daily Mail reports the rascally Russians are getting up close and personal with the Aloha State by conducting war games nearby, bringing back memories not only of Pearl Harbor, but the Cold War and the adage “better dead than red” when some Americans expressed their willingness to die rather than to live under Soviet domination.
At least 20 Russian warships, submarines, and support vessels, flanked by 20 fighter jets, are taking part in the exercises – the biggest since the Cold War.
Russia says that they are 300 miles off the coast of Hawaii, yet unconfirmed satellite images from June 19 appear to show them much closer – within 35 miles of the U.S. state.
According to a report from the website The Drive:
The Russian Ministry of Defense today published an account about the Pacific Fleet maneuvers, which are described as having practiced “the tasks of destroying an aircraft carrier strike group of a mock enemy.” A simulated cruise missile strike was carried out by the Pacific Fleet flagship, the Slava class cruiser Varyag (pictured at the top of this story), as well as the Udaloy class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, and the Steregushchiy class corvettes Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov, Gromky, and Sovershenniy.
This story brings back memories from the Cold War when military exercises involving the NATO or the Warsaw Pact playfully enacted how to pull off limited nuclear annihilation of their opponents. Now that “Creepy” Joe Biden is in office, it seems that Putin is testing America’s “Creep in Chief” to see how far he can push things. However, the U.S. isn’t ready to let Russian bombers fly the friendly skies of Hawaii. The Daily Mail noted:
Twice this month – on June 14 and 18 – the U.S. scrambled F-22s from Hawaii in response to Russian bomber flights.
Neither time did the bombers enter the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) perimeter, and so they were not intercepted.
On June 17 the Navy admitted that the USS Carl Vinson and her strike group were operating near Hawaii, without revealing when they had arrived, or why.
It’s good to know that the U.S. military can still find time between sensitivity training to mount a response to testosterone (and likely vodka) fueled foolishness.