The lefty in me wants to point out that, beginning with Jimmy Carter, the United States waged a massive covert war with the singular aim of getting payback for Vietnam by killing Russian soldiers in Afghanistan. This was really quite deadly for the Russians and assisted in bringing down their entire form of government. By contrast, a division of Russian military intelligence has apparently paid out a bounty for the death of at least one American soldier and perhaps a few more than that. If this kind of behavior is news to anyone, they haven’t been paying attention at any point during that last sixty or seventy years.

GRU Unit 29155 has probably killed more civilians in England than American soldiers in Afghanistan, but assassination and murder are their core job descriptions. Everything they do is reprehensible and most of it is designed to make the West suffer. There was perhaps a time when Putin had a shared interest in destroying the Taliban, but his interest in getting payback for the Soviet-Afghan War has always been central to his thinking. It’s a cycle of violence between our two countries and Putin was never going to be the one to end it.

I don’t mean to suggest that I see a moral equivalence between the Soviet Union and America or that I think Putin’s Russia should be given any kind of pass whatsoever for putting bounties on our troops. My point is that I already knew that Russia was looking to ratfuck our efforts in Afghanistan, and that there are only two ways to deal with them. In the long term, we need to work toward an end to the cycle of violence, but in the short-term, Putin needs to be treated like the murderous gangster that he is. When the president receives an intelligence report confirming that Russia is trying to kill our soldiers, that isn’t some earth-shattering revelation that requires a declaration of war. But it does mean that Russia must be considered a hostile power and treated as a pariah state.

That means they should not be invited to rejoin the Group of Seven, and it definitely doesn’t call for unilaterally reducing our troop presence in Germany in return for nothing. Our president shouldn’t be having friendly chats with Putin on the telephone. Instead, pressure should be applied on Russia so that they will make a different calculation about what is in their self-interest.

President Trump claims that no one told him about the bounties even though it was reportedly including in his Daily Intelligence Briefing packet, perhaps as long ago as March. If he wasn’t told, it can only confirm that the intelligence community doesn’t trust Trump to side with America over Russia or to protect our sources and methods from Putin. If he was told and responded by getting even friendlier with Russia, then it amounts to the same thing. This is the real earth-shattering story here.

Russia helped Trump get elected and they’re going to try to help him get reelected. They have a hold over him. This “breaking news” is massive confirmation of that, and that’s why it’s important.