Ukrainian military exercises in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, August 2023
Viacheslav Ratynskyi / Reuters

Since the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the specter of escalation has loomed over the war. For Ukrainian citizens and soldiers, the war is a grueling, horrific, daily reality that has already escalated in notable ways; in August, Kyiv ramped up strikes in Russia, and Moscow has resumed its campaign against Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea. Seen another way, however, many of the most feared escalation scenarios have not occurred, most notably a large-scale conventional war between NATO and Russia and the use of nuclear weapons.

Eighteen months after the war began, it is time to take

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