Free Republic

The front line on the battlefield in Ukraine has grown in length to nearly 1,250 kilometers (800 miles), stretching Kyiv’s defenses, while Russian forces employ a new tactic of sending swarms of small assault groups to infiltrate Ukrainian lines, Ukraine’s top military commander says. The line of contact has grown by roughly 200 kilometers (120 miles) over the past year, and Ukrainian forces are averaging between 160 and 190 combat engagements every day with Russia’s bigger army, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a review of the battlefield situation. At the same time, Russian tactics have switched since the start of...

The 9 September events demonstrate two interlocking realities. First, the prospect of a NATO–Russia war is no longer an abstraction. Moscow has shown a willingness to test NATO directly. Second, the most likely path to such a conflict is not through deliberate escalation but through miscalculation. The means to a wider war exist; the question is which one. Technical failure, human error, or political panic could cause escalation to spiral in a single instant.

A senior Russian diplomat warned Thursday that increasing Western support for Ukraine could trigger an open conflict between nuclear powers. Speaking at the U.N. conference on disarmament, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denounced the U.S. and its allies for openly declaring the goal of defeating Russia in a “hybrid” war, arguing that it violates their obligations under international agreements and is fraught with the war in Ukraine spilling out of control. Ryabkov warned that “the U.S. and NATO policy of fueling the conflict in Ukraine” and their ”increasing involvement in the military confrontation is fraught with a direct military...

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