The Rising Tensions in Eastern Europe By: Alex Melendez Ortiz

Eastern Europe is home to one of the greatest conflicts of modern times in the Russia-Ukraine War. With 11,520 civilians killed and 23,640 injured, according to Statista. This ongoing war combined with the NATO’s military, humanitarian, and economic support for Ukraine has increased tensions between Russia and the NATO. As a result, there is the possibility of this war unfolding into an even larger conflict.

In the resent years the Russian Federation has been very vocal on its disapproval of the expansion of NATO and their support for Ukraine. The nation has made multiple threats of war towards NATO as their consistent support to Ukraine and its constant expansion possess a threat to the national security of Russia. As the Kremlin states, “NATO’s confrontational actions prompt Russia to take response measures.” This solidifies Russia’s view on NATO’s actions as a threat to its safety. However, NATO states, “NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia.” The organization recognizing Russia as threat only enforces preventative measures to avoid direct confrontation with the Russian federation. These conflicting stances are resulting in increasing tensions between both sides.

NATO has been persistent in its support for Ukraine since the beginning of the war and Russian threats have not deterred that support. As stated by NATO, “NATO condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia's illegal, unjustifiable and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine, which gravely undermines Euro-Atlantic and global security and stability and is a blatant violation of international law.” This hard stance by NATO is an attempt to intimidate Russia into not expanding the war. However, NATO actually benefits from Russia using its resources in Ukraine, as tenth-grade student Connor Shia states, “I think they just want to make Russia weak, they want Russia to throw away all its military and resources at the war so that the country becomes weak.” The war being limited to Ukraine would provide safety for the member states and prevent to organization from being forced to fully involve itself in the conflict. Consequently, NATO supporting Ukraine by providing military equipment helps weaken Russia, and so far, NATO has relied on this method to try and keep Russia off bay.

In contrast, the Russian Federation has been changing its strategies in the war. During most of the war Russia had focused on combating the small Ukrainian military units by overwhelming them with a many of poorly trained Russian soldiers. However, this old strategy has resulted in a high death rate for Russian soldiers, so the country is changing how it fights. As it is stated by Aljazeera, “Moscow has slowly absorbed the costly lessons from the beginning of the war. Poor-quality troops are better suited for defense and the adroit use of extensive defensive lines in southern Ukraine’s flat, open countryside helped blunt Ukraine’s counteroffensive in 2023. Russia has learnt that only better-quality soldiers can be used for offensive action.” This change in strategy could change the trajectory of the war and how NATO handles its strategies.

Even more importantly, Russia has been more frequent in its threats for nuclear war. The expansion of the war to include nuclear weapons could be catastrophic, and it could drag multiple countries into the conflict. However, western countries have not been taking these threats seriously, and that could be troublesome. Furthermore, multiple NATO member possess nuclear weapons which could result in all out nuclear war if Russia follows up on its threats. If the unlikely event of nuclear were to arise the countries involved would not be the only ones effected, it would become a world threat. As Hillgrove junior Camille Franklin puts it, “Everything would go down to the nukes that’s what everyone would think about, the world would go crazy.” An event like this would lead to world paranoia. “Well really, the threat of nuclear war is something the world never wants to hear.” States sophomore Ana Miquilena. Nuclear war is an extremely unlike event due to the risks posed to all sides, however it is an event to be considered. 

This conflict is having been slowly developing over the past few years, and it is likely to continue developing as the war continues. This could cause major changes for the region and most of the world. The dynamics in Eastern Europe are going trough a major change in the current periods as two giants confront each other ever so frequently.