Russia Preparing for Large-Scale Conflict With NATO: ISW

Russia is expanding part of its army to ready itself for a large-scale conflict with NATO, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.The independent Washington, D.C. think tank’s assessment on Friday follows a report in the Kremlin-friendly newspaper Izvestia about the Russian Defense Ministry’s expansion of the newly formed Leningrad Military District. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced this in December in response to Finland joining the NATO alliance.Russian Defense Ministry sources told Izvestia that, in Karelia, a republic in Russia’s north bordering Finland, a missile…