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The crisis in Ukraine is deeply rooted in its history and the geopolitical shifts following the Cold War. The West's promise in the early 1990s, notably by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, that NATO would not expand eastward, was quickly disregarded, leading to a significant increase in tensions with Russia—culminating in the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The ongoing conflict escalated with the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, leading to a complex interplay of military maneuvers and cyber attacks. A hypothetical future scenario could see a drone strike in a Russian exclave escalating into a multi-nation conflict. If a Russian escalation were to occur, invoking mutual defense would pull NATO into the fray against Russian forces once again—potentially igniting World War III.