Russia has engaged in almost 40 “volatile standoffs” against the West in the last eight months, according to a report released Monday by the European Leadership Network, a British nonprofit. Since Russia annexed Crimea in March, the country has appeared increasingly pugnacious in international relations. Russia has goaded Western countries by tempting physical and diplomatic clashes by deliberately not transmitting its war planes’ positions, performing dangerously close overflights, and leading “mock bombing raids,” as the report refers to them. “These events add up to a highly disturbing picture of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided midair collisions, close encounters at sea, simulated attack runs and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area,” said the report. It also urged Russia to “re-evaluate the costs and risks of continuing its more assertive military posture.
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