August 11, 2024: Russia views the combat zone as much larger than the areas in Ukraine where fighting is currently underway. Russia has admitted that they consider NATO nations supporting Ukraine to be full of legitimate targets. Russia does not issue press releases about its sabotage and assassination campaign in NATO countries supporting the Ukrainians. Americans and European intelligence agencies first detected this activity when it was in the planning stage. In the past year the Russians went from planning to implementation. Russia planned a series of assassinations and attacks on facilities involved with manufacturing weapons and munitions for Ukrainian forces. Americans and European intelligence nations detected these plans and did so early enough to disrupt Russian efforts to implement their plans.

The Americans have long maintained a ground and space based monitoring and intelligence gathering operation. This information was shared with other NATO nations and Ukraine, which will become a NATO member when the war is over.