Russia intensifies missile attacks on Kyiv ahead of NATO summit

Putin’s rigid course of continuing the war is increasingly perceived not as “more of the same” but as a slide down a steep slope toward disaster. Expectations in Moscow for a break in this downhill trajectory granted by a surge of discord at the NATO summit in Ankara are in the category of a desperate stretch of imagination rather than sober assessments. Large attacks on Kyiv are generating stronger European resolve to deter and extinguish the Russian threat in all its manifestations.