By Grady Boris, Staff Writer

As of this very moment, Russian troops are beginning to line the border between their homeland and Ukraine, prepared to invade their neighboring country. We may be on the brink of a lightning war, or worse. While this conflict may be new to some, we are only seeing the boiling point in a conflict that has been brewing for quite some time.

Even if Russia were to invade Ukraine, it wouldn’t be the first time in the last 10 years. Back in the spring of 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula after a Ukrainian conflict. If you were to go back farther than that, Russia and Ukraine have been feuding over the Crimean Peninsula for centuries. The point is, this is nothing new.

Even more recently, Russia has been trying to alter the European Security Treaty (EST) in 2021 with a U.S.-Russia treaty. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), these alterations include “seek9ing0 to ban NATO enlargement, U.S. or NATO cross-border troop deployments, NATO or U.S. cooperation with non-member states to the East.” 

Putin is clear in his intention of trying to push back on western influence in Eastern Europe and expand Russia’s sphere of influence. His revisions and redrafts of these treaties also wants “the return of U.S. nuclear weapons to the continental United States and elimination of NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements.” 

While Russia would be invading Ukraine, their aim is to dismantle nuclear and Cold War treaties that limit the power of Russia and try to maintain peace throughout all of Europe.

Several politicians and some parts of the media are fearing the worst with this invasion looming and the phrase “World War III” gets tossed around along with “Lightning War” and other conflict related buzzwords. 

However, if a third global war were to break out, it would’ve been back in January 2020 when the United States bombed Iran and killed Qasem Solemani. In that case, the Iraninan general’s assassination caused an uproar between the U. S. and Iran that nearly sent the world into a full-fledged war, being de-escalated before it was able to get out of hand.

This is not a global threat, nor is it anywhere near a global threat. Russia is currently acting against Ukraine and the entirety of NATO. France, Spain, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Denmark are ready to mobilize troops in a potential response to Russia. Even if Russia were to begin a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, most of Western Europe along with the United States will be there to stomp out any semblance of an invasion.

So stop fanning the fear- mongering flames. This is nowhere near the global catastrophe that the first two world wars were; hell, it pales in comparison to the annexation of Crimea and other smaller, more recent conflicts. 

While it is concerning that Putin is getting aggressive to the point of surrounding Ukraine and attempting to alter treaties that have stood for decades, the truth is that his allies are few and far between. Even in a worst case scenario where a full scale invasion is launched, his closest possible ally is Belarus, but the firepower of those two countries combined stands no chance against those who oppose them.

We are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is not a potential global war, this is not Putin about to go on a conquest across Europe and this is certainly not something to spend too much time on as long as you’re not actively in Ukraine or the military. This too shall pass, and to believe that this is a marker of the end of time is absurd.