Thanks for this article. Like most folks in the West, I've known almost nothing about the Caspian Sea and its border regions. Remedial Geography 101 needed. For a sense of scale, imagine launching a missile from Chicago to New Orleans, pinpointing a ship just three miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. (In terms of size and importance, the Volga and the Mississippi are roughly equal.) That's what Ukraine accomplished with its strike on an Iranian vessel at Russia's doorstep in the Caspian Sea. Seems to me the US had to play a key role in this feat.