“is likely to have unnerved the Pentagon and caused further perplexity at the State Department over the Kremlin’s mercurial course.”
Meanwhile, anyone with a smidgen of common sense could have seen this coming a decade ago.
the pentagon would be perplexed as to why the Russkies would use an ancient and highly vulnerable and not very effective Tu-95,
the state department was unnerved because this publicity stunt doesn't fit their foggy world view of how things are going internationally...