India, Oct. 15 -- Russia is not approaching a war with NATO. It is already fighting one. That was the stark assessment delivered on Wednesday by one of the most senior military commanders the alliance has ever produced, at a moment when the West is struggling to agree on whether it is at peace or at war with the Kremlin at all.

Retired four-star general Curtis Scaparrotti, who served as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 2016 to 2019, warned at an Atlantic Council think-tank event in Washington that Russia is engaged in hybrid warfare against the alliance, with a long-term Kremlin plan to "break" NATO.

"When they look at warfare, they don't have a line between peace and war. So from my perspective, if you looked at it from thei...