Proxy war or not, US and NATO allies get creative in aid for Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly accused the United States of waging a proxy war in Ukraine – most recently on July 7 – and he’s not entirely wrong, U.S. military analysts say.

But proxy war is a very loose thing in international law, and whether the U.S. is in one with Russia, many add, matters less than whether the U.S. and its NATO allies can continue to push red lines without prompting a Russian reprisal that officially draws the alliance into war.

“If you ask lawyers, or a military general, they all have a different answer on whether or not this is a proxy war. It’s very relative,” says Sean McFate, a professor at National Defense University who served in the U.S. Army. “The answer