By Uncle-Ice @Adobe Stock
Benoit Faucon and Thomas Grove of The Wall Street Journal report that Moscow’s assistance in attacks that are disrupting trade shows how the Kremlin is seeking to tie up the U.S. in the Middle East. They write:
Russia provided targeting data for Yemen’s Houthi rebels as they attacked Western ships in the Red Sea with missiles and drones earlier this year, helping the Iranian-backed group assault a major artery for global trade and further destabilizing the region.
The Houthis, which began their attacks late last year over the Gaza war, eventually began using Russian satellite data as they expanded their strikes, said a person familiar with the matter and two European defense officials. The data was passed through members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who were embedded with the Houthis in Yemen, one of the people said.
The assistance, which hasn’t been previously reported, shows how far Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to go to undermine the U.S.-led Western economic and political order. […]
The U.S. has been concerned that Russia could escalate the situation further by providing the Houthis with Russian antiship or antiair missiles that could threaten the U.S. military’s efforts to protect ships in the region, but there is so far no evidence that Russia has done so.
Earlier this month, Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had recently been released from a U.S. prison in a prisoner swap with Moscow, was trying to broker the sale of about $10 million worth of automatic small arms to the Houthis, The Wall Street Journal has reported. It was unclear whether the sale had been initiated or blessed by the Kremlin. […]
Tankers carrying Russian oil cargoes, including by Kremlin-connected Rosneft, have been attacked by the Houthis on several occasions. But these shipments are carried out through a so-called ghost fleet owned by shell companies to evade sanctions whose Russian connection is only known by a close circle of Russian oil officials and market players.
Read more here.
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