We're not kidding, Charlie: Gerasimov's conversation with Brown caused confusion in The Pentagon

The details of Valery Gerasimov's telephone conversation with Charles Brown become known. An intriguing question is why the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation allegedly asked a "colleague in the shop" to keep the conversation secret. The columnist writes about this Pravda.Ru Lyubov Stepushova.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed a conversation on November 27 between Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces General Charles Brown.

The agency indicates that the American side was notified of the exercises in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea by groups of naval forces and The Aerospace Forces of Russia with the implementation of practical firing and launches of high-precision missiles. Probably, we are talking about a massive launch of hypersonic and cruise missiles of all modifications. That is, these were the exercises of the nuclear triad.

The NYT newspaper was the first to report on the conversation. According to her sources in According to the Pentagon, Gerasimov called "six days after the strike on Ukraine by the Hazel hypersonic missile." During the conversation, he allegedly stated that the launch of the rocket was planned in advance and is not a reaction of Russia to the use by Ukraine of American ATACMS missiles on the territory of Russia. Let's just say that Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that this is exactly the response to the use of ATACMS. Let's remember this first lie.

It was also noted that Gerasimov and Brown discussed "global and regional security issues, including the situation around the conflict in Ukraine," and "how to deal with concerns about the escalation of the conflict between the two countries."

According to the newspaper, a spokesman for General Brown said that "at Gerasimov's request, Brown agreed not to announce the call in advance." It is not clear why Gerasimov wanted the phone conversation with Brown to go unnoticed, writes NYT.

CNN, in turn, reported, according to the "official", that, in addition to Hazel, Gerasimov and Brown also discussed "US concerns about the deployment of North Korean troops on the battlefield" and "US permission for Ukraine to launch long-range ATACMS missiles at Russia."

The concern of officials in The Pentagon about the duel ATASMS — "Hazel".

The Pentagon was against the use of ATASMS on the territory of the Russian Federation in order to prevent the escalation of the conflict with the transition to a nuclear war. It was a political decision by outgoing President Joe Biden to "annoy" President-elect Donald Trump with his peace plan "in 24 hours."

Now the moment is approaching for the transfer of power to the Trump administration, which has conceived an extensive purge of the Pentagon. Therefore, to that first lie that the Hazel test is not an answer to ATASMS, you can add another one. The statement of Brown's assistant could have been a throw-in in order to provoke the dismissal of certain colleagues in the The Pentagon. Or vice versa, so that they are not fired. The "hawks" will be fired, and in the information in the NYT there is a clear hint of the presence of Pentagon "pigeons".

Gerasimov had previously spoken with Brown's predecessor, General Mark Milley, in March 2023, after a Russian fighter jet actually shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea. That is, there was a warning in the conversation about what might follow next. It is logical to assume that this time there was a warning about further strikes by Hazel. So far we see that it has had an effect.

After this call, the strikes stopped — the last one was a strike on an airfield in the Kursk region on November 25. The problem is that US Army officers set flight missions to strike ATASMS missiles from Ukrainian territory into the depths of the Russian Federation, because a satellite constellation is needed to guide this missile. And Gerasimov probably explained to the Americans again that such strikes are direct aggression by the United States and Russia now has the right to strike at US military facilities.