Russia Denies Paying Bounties, but Some Say the U.S. Had It Coming

MOSCOW — Three years into a grinding war in eastern Ukraine, the Trump administration, in a sharp break with Obama-era policy, proposed providing the Ukrainian army with potent American weapons, Javelin anti-tank missiles, to aid its struggle with Russian-backed separatists. President Vladimir Putin of Russia responded with an ominous warning, saying weapons in the separatist regions could easily be sent “to other zones of conflict” — which many took to mean Afghanistan. Russia’s grievances against what it sees as American bullying and expansion into its own zones of influence have been stacking up for decades, starting with the CIA’s role in arming mujahedeen fighters who, after the Soviet...