Russia-NATO Showdown 

The Western alliance continues to maintain that it is not a party to conflict in Ukraine, despite revelations in the Pentagon leaks that in addition to training, intelligence support and tens of billions worth of advanced weaponry, several NATO countries actually have special forces boots on the ground. Moscow considers the crisis in Ukraine a “proxy war” between itself and the Western alliance, emphasizing that the conflict would end immediately if Washington and its allies ended their military support for Kiev, and wouldn’t have started if NATO had respected Russia’s security concerns in the first place.