This sounds like a warning. US embassies will probably be on the list, though I think a more direct warning to civilians will be made before they actually strike.
Meaningless. Ukrainians are already expendable, the only thing that is desired by the west is the land and a handful of miserable people to exploit within it. Government buildings? Who cares. The real decisions in the west's opinion will be made at Blackrock HQ. The west doesn't care about Russia responding within the theater of war. Nearly everything there aside from embassies is fair game already for Russia and the west doesn't dispute that being part of a limited war with Ukraine.
What the west has gotten away with is direct involvement in hitting Russia. The tit for tat is not more strikes in Ukraine but strikes against the west that is via their weapons supply, their personnel, their satellites, etc directly striking Russia and merely staging such attacks from a third party's land. Give Ansar Allah powerful anti-ship weapons and anti-air, give them the ability to shoot down US and NATO jets flying over Yemen, give them the ability to maim or sink NATO ships in the area and that will be a tit for tat.
Hitting embassies as someone else mentioned is a different kind of escalation. Embassies are presumed to not only be sovereign soil but above conflicts, even in war one doesn't hit the embassies of one's enemy, you deport their personnel and then you can blow it up after they've had a chance to close down and take out what needs to be taken out. But you don't strike them. The lawless west gets away with doing "oopsies" to the Chinese embassy once because they are the hegemon and they can manufacture the lie that it was an accident whereas Russia doing this to the US embassy, no one would believe it was an accident and it would be used to stir up outrage and indeed the propagandized political class would feel it as an extra affront to them and their special exemption in state departments and diplomatic and spying corps to be above being hit as if they were merely another military target. Whereas they have some distance mentally and emotionally from their troops and militaries the decision-makers very much see things like embassies I believe as a kind of special sacred ground, the defiling of which would likely anger them more than a military strike and do more to convince them they are in a life or death struggle that must be fought to the last if they're not already believing that. But it falls into the west's desires to paint Russia as lawless, as being a rogue state, as not following the rules. Whereas a military strike that's an exact mirror of what the west is now doing with ATACMs is fair play, the west won't see it that way but they're delusional, however the global south will and that optic matters a bit.
Attacking a US embassy deliberately is a VERY dangerous escalatory move. Legally the embassy is territory of the owning country. Given the salami slicing we've seen I would expect the embassies are way down on the list.
Although I agree that it would be seen as an escalation, it would fit the bill of Putin's and Lavrov's comments over it being a valid reaction, without necessarily striking into actual NATO territory.
They can also send multiple clear warnings like they did last time so that the embassies can evacuate personnel again, in order to prevent foreign (civilian) citizen deaths falling solely on their hands. But then NATO chains of command need to also act responsibly and allow personnel to evacuate, which is much more likely than it seems, as they did evacuate a cease functions temporarily just last week.
It's a fair point. I think hitting infrastructure is more likely, but you're right that it could be on their list and might be aligned with their goals.
The US literally attacked Russia with missiles while claiming it was Ukraine doing it and Russia saying that it sees it as the US and its vassals, so the escalation is already way past that point.
Can you even imagine how the american public would react if that happened? If they could publish that american citizens died in an embassy after a Russian and have it actually be true?
There's still ambiguity under international norms because the missile launch button was plausibly pushed by a Ukrainian soldier in Ukrainian territory. Yes, everything else was provided by the USA or NATO, but there's still an ambiguity that would make a direct Russian attack on an embassy an escalation.
