Driven by worry about China’s aggression, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has adopted the most muscular foreign policy approach that the Philippines has seen in close to a decade.
The deployment to a NATO country near the conflict in Ukraine is seen as a model of deterrence for a U.S. military that has recently stepped back from direct fighting.
Ryazan, not far from Moscow, regularly sends young men off to fight. Some are now buried in the local cemetery, but there is no surge of outrage against Russian leaders.
Russia said falling wreckage from a Ukrainian drone had killed three servicemen at the base, some 300 miles from Ukraine, which would be the third such long-range attack this month.