…“This is a serious escalation,” said Mark Gunzinger, a former Air Force bomber pilot who is now a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “It’s not clear whether they intend to actually use it, or whether they are just signaling a strong message to the U.S. that 'we are here to stay, that we're not going to relinquish the gains that we've made.' " …
…“If the U.S. decided to seek a regime change by direct military action — that is a huge if — then one of the things they’d have to consider is ‘do we attack the Russian air defenses? Or do we simply conduct the operation in a way that we are not put at risk by them?” Gunzinger said. ..