Coverage · NATO Eastern Flank

NATO Eastern Flank

Force Structure

Every published organisation on both sides, as an order of battle you can walk: pick a formation, see the parent above it and its subordinates below, and read what the record itself states.

Northern and Eastern Europe Collective defence system Published

Published
Coverage reviewed
2026-11-01

Weekly review / event-driven updates

Context, not targeting. This atlas describes structure and history. It deliberately excludes current locations, live strength, unit movements and anything operationally sensitive — the content model has no fields for them. Branch depth reflects what can be established from public sources, not the size, capability or importance of a force: a thin branch means a state publishes little, and record counts are never a measure of strength.

Order of battle Structural · historical · non-operational

This view needs JavaScript. Every organisation it draws has a permanent page of its own — the Formations indexlists all of them, and the browser on the left links each one.

Line pattern is the subordination the record states: solid confirmed · dashed reported · fine dots disputed · sparse dots unknown or historical. Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia. No positions, strengths, readiness or movements are published, and none is drawn.

Equipment Library Major publicly documented systems · full profiles and structured records

Reviewed profiles of major publicly documented systems — the ones unit profiles and key events link to, each with a permanent page. The full structured catalogue, including the stub index, lives at Equipment. Each system's confidence grade, status date and sources are shown on its own record.

Boxer

Armoured personnel carrier
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The German–Dutch modular wheeled vehicle that carries Lithuania's mechanised infantry and the flank's newest wheeled howitzer — a single chassis whose interchangeable mission modules make it the platform the module's armour-recapitalisation object reads Lithuania's rearmament through.
Origin
Germany, Netherlands
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank · Ukraine–Russia (RCH 155 pledge)

CAESAR

Artillery
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The French wheeled 155 mm howitzer — shoot-and-scoot survivability that kept it in the counter-battery fight where towed guns could not live.
Origin
France
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · Middle East · Caucasus · NATO Eastern Flank

CV90 family

Infantry fighting vehicle
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The Swedish infantry fighting vehicle that the northern flank has converged on — six operators, two more contracted, a six-nation joint acquisition signed in 2025 — and the vehicle whose Ukrainian combat record is the published reason the orders grew.
Origin
Sweden
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · NATO Eastern Flank

E-3A Sentry (NATO AWACS)

AEW&C / ISR aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The alliance's own airborne radar, a NATO-owned fleet that watches the airspace of the eastern flank from inside allied territory and feeds the integrated air and missile defence picture the module's airspace questions read.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank

Eurofighter Typhoon

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The European fighter that four Gulf air forces chose as their second supplier — the political hedge, in aircraft form, against dependence on a single ally.
Origin
United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain
Also appears in
Yemen campaign · NATO Eastern Flank

F-16AM/BM

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Ukraine's first Western fighter — an air-defence workhorse and integration milestone rather than the silver bullet once advertised.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · Middle East · NATO Eastern Flank · global service

F-35A Lightning II

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The fighter the flank's air forces are converging on — nine of the module's states operate or have contracted it — and the clearest single measure of how far allied air power on the flank depends on one American production line.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank

IRIS-T SLM / SLS

Air defence
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The German-supplied medium-range layer — the system Ukraine relies on against cruise missiles, sitting between cheap counter-drone defences and the scarce anti-ballistic tier.
Origin
Germany
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · NATO Eastern Flank

JAS 39 Gripen

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Sweden's fighter and the only European alternative to the F-35 on the northern flank — flown by three of the module's air forces and pledged to Ukraine — designed from the start to operate from dispersed road bases.
Origin
Sweden
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank · Ukraine–Russia (pledged)

K2 Black Panther

Main battle tank
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The South Korean tank Poland chose in 2022 when European production could not deliver at the speed Warsaw wanted — the largest single armour programme on the flank and the one that made Poland's army the Alliance's biggest tank operator in Europe.
Origin
South Korea
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank

K9 Thunder

Artillery
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The South Korean self-propelled howitzer that four flank armies bought and a fifth has contracted — with the Polish licence line and the Romanian plant, the closest thing the flank has to a common 155 mm gun.
Origin
South Korea
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank

Leopard 2 family

Main battle tank
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The principal Western-donated main battle tank family in Ukrainian service.
Origin
Germany
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · NATO Eastern Flank

M142 HIMARS

Rocket artillery
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Precision deep-strike rocket artillery that reshaped Russian logistics in 2022.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · Middle East · NATO Eastern Flank

MIM-104 Patriot

Air defence
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The upper tier of Ukraine's air defence — the system publicly credited with its routine ballistic-missile intercepts over the cities.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · Middle East · NATO Eastern Flank

NASAMS

Air defence
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The other half of Ukraine's medium-range layer — a ground-launched system firing air-to-air missiles, used against cruise missiles and drones rather than against ballistic threats.
Origin
Norway, United States
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · NATO Eastern Flank

PzH 2000

Artillery
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The German 155 mm self-propelled howitzer that Ukraine has fired since 2022 and that Germany, the Netherlands and Lithuania field on the flank — the gun whose wartime barrel wear and restarted production line show what sustained artillery war costs.
Origin
Germany
Also appears in
Ukraine–Russia · NATO Eastern Flank
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The joint German–Norwegian submarine — twelve boats on order, the first due in 2029 — that the module's naval recapitalisation object uses to show how far the flank's undersea programmes run behind the posture built on top of them.
Origin
Germany
Also appears in
NATO Eastern Flank
Future · acquisition Full record →