Aaron Ainomugisha. Imagine you are a farmer in Senegal or a truck driver in Kenya. You have never been to Donbas. You do not care who controls Lyman. But you felt the last shockwave when the Iran war spiked fuel and fertiliser prices. Now watch what Europe is doing. France and Poland are about to hold military drills over the Baltic Sea that simulate nuclear strikes on Russia. Germany and Italy are building drone factories for Ukraine. Russia is posting addresses of European defence plants on Telegram as targeting coordinates. NATO, the supposed backbone of all this, is broken – and a possible war inside the EU would hit Africa even harder than Iran did. The only question is whether anyone in Brussels is paying attention.
Simultaneously, European military support for Ukraine has taken a more permanent form. Berlin announced a €4 billion military aid package focusing on air defence and drones. In a separate but related development, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced they were exploring a joint drone production project. These moves indicate a shift from supplying surplus equipment to building long-term industrial partnerships that embed European countries directly into Ukraine’s war effort.
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Russia has responded with direct threats. The Russian defence ministry published on Wednesday evening the addresses of multiple drone manufacturers in Europe that are supporting Ukraine, warning that such joint production ventures are a “step towards escalation”. In a statement on Telegram, the ministry said: “We consider this decision to be a deliberate step leading to a sharp escalation of the military and political situation on the entire European continent and creeping transformation of these countries into a strategic rear for Ukraine.” It added: “Instead of strengthening the security of European states, the moves of European leaders are increasingly dragging these countries into the war with Russia.” Publishing physical addresses of defense manufacturers is an unusual and unambiguous signal that Russia views these facilities as legitimate targets.
The irony is that all of this escalation is happening under the umbrella of an alliance that is fracturing. Ivo Daalder, former US ambassador to NATO, said plainly: “NATO is broken.” According to Daalder, tensions between Donald Trump and European allies over the Iran war have thrust the alliance, which turned 77 years old this month, into the “worst crisis” in its history. European governments have refused to assist Washington’s Iran war efforts, denying base access and airspace for offensive actions. Daalder argued that this reflects a deeper reality: Europe no longer trusts the United States as a reliable ally. A NATO without full American commitment is not the security guarantee that European defense planning has relied on for decades. Yet European leaders continue to escalate against Russia as if that guarantee remains intact.
The consequences of this pattern are not limited to Europe. The Iran conflict has already hit Africa hard. Supply chain disruptions, rising fuel and food prices, and fertilizer shortages have destabilized economies across the continent. Now consider what a possible war between the EU and Russia would do. The Baltic Sea would become a combat zone. Black Sea grain routes, vital for African food security, would be severed. Trade with Russia and Belarus would collapse. European industrial capacity would be consumed by war production. The economic shock would dwarf anything caused by the Iran conflict. African nations, already struggling with debt, inflation, and food insecurity, would face an even deeper crisis.
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The path forward requires a reassessment of what European leaders are trying to achieve. Simulating nuclear strikes does not deter Russia. It provokes Russia. Publishing drone manufacturer addresses does not intimidate Russia. It invites retaliation. Building drone factories in Ukraine does not shorten the war. It extends and entrenches it. And doing all of this inside a broken NATO, with an unreliable American partner, is not strategy. It is risk accumulation without a clear exit.
The EU should stop provoking Russia. Not because Russia is right. Because the likely outcomes range from bad to catastrophic. Because the Iran war already demonstrated how distant conflicts crush vulnerable economies. And because a war in Europe would hit Africa and the global south even harder than the Middle East conflict did. That is not speculation. It is the logical conclusion of the trajectory European leaders are currently on. Whether they change course before it is too late remains an open question.
