Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian leaders two weeks ago for a three-day conference in Moscow. The circumstances of the visit are currently unknown, and the specifics have only been speculated by Western media.

Among the possible causes for this visit is simply President Putin showing his own power, likely trying to assert himself over his recent arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Putin’s alleged crime in particular was his involvement in the mass deportation of Ukrainian children from their families and into Russian foster cares.

The conference has only made Western nations’ leaders more paranoid, as tensions across the world have been rising since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February. As organizations like NATO and the EU have backed Ukraine’s resistance, nations like Iran, China, and North Korea have expressed their support for the Russians.

Different contested parts of the world could very well open the door for a third world war, as places like Taiwan, Syria, and Ukraine are all but in open war between both the West and Russia.

China in particular has been provoking Western nations, as there have been several threats made by China’s coast guard toward U.S. aircraft in neutral airspace, all while they and North Korea have made missile tests over Japan into the bordering sea.

More directly, China began March by flying two surveillance balloons across the United States, both of which were shot down and recovered by U.S. intelligence agencies.

A possible secondary purpose of Jinping’s visit with President Putin is to affirm their alliance with each other as China has been providing its own supplies for Russian forces and both have increasingly contested territories like the mentioned Taiwan and Ukraine that could open into total war against the powers that protect them, both Europe and the U.S.

NATO has made ties of its own. In recent weeks, however, as of April 4th, Finland joined the alliance. Finland is the third country that borders Russia to join the alliance, with Ukraine hoping to follow the same if they ever see sovereignty. Many Russians have bitterness against Finland since WWII, as the former Soviet Union invaded the Nordic country only to be surprisingly halted by the impossibly outnumbered Finnish irregulars.

Finland’s story and involvement in NATO may inspire hope for the resisting Ukrainians- if the Russians had been stopped before, they can be stopped again.

Even more impactful for the western allies is the recent supply of German tanks from the previously reported arms deal for Ukraine. The tanks and its crew had been trained in Poland and are ready to deploy any day. The American tanks pledged in the same deal are still in training with their crews and are expected to deploy this summer.

Amid Finland’s induction into NATO and Russia’s summit with China, the direction and scale of the Ukrainian War loom across the world- particularly the countries that border Russia’s allies and fear invasion at any moment.