Cobbasna: Russia's 'MacGuffin' between Ukraine and NATO

“War is messy, and we have already seen how the conflict is spreading away from the frontlines,” said Emily Ferris, the Russia and Eurasia research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, RUSI, a London-based defence and security think tank. She cited attacks on infrastructure in southern Russia and deep inside Ukrainian territory, as well as instances where missile debris had landed in Poland and Moldova. “Some of these are accidental, some are not,” she said. “But the closer the two sides come to a war of attrition, the riskier the behaviour is becoming.”