Keep in mind that Russia has gathered hundreds of thousands of troops & their equipment on the border of Ukraine, for zero good reason other than to bully, intimidate, or invade. This is entirely a crisis of Russia's making.
Put bluntly, Ukraine is a strategic buffer between Russia and the West, keeping their nukes and armed forces at arm's length. Ukraine didn't like this role, it wanted out, but it underestimated how much this would tip the balance. They moved too fast and against a now-pissed former and powerful ally. Hence the result.
That is, there is a pretty good reason for Russia to do all this even if their methods are painfully crude.
That's what Russians say, but if you stop thinking it, it makes no sense.
The analogy to an abuser claiming ownership of a battered spouse is becoming incredibly apt.
If you're not a citizen of Ukraine, it's none of your business. Maybe if you didn't keep beating her bloody you'd have a better relationship?
Put bluntly, nukes don't matter, and armed forces are only used to suppress societal discontent. Ukraine sees the regressive authoritarianism Putin creates and didn't like how the pie is cut. Putin is throwing a temper tantrum because he's a dinosaur. He can only look back, and on his deathbed he will look back on a Russia that could and should have been much more.
There is a reason for his party to do all this, but its fear of facing their own failure birthed in greed and paranoia, and not any military strategy in the face of satellites, drones, and hyper-sonic nukes.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassifie...
Agreements regarding matters of such strategic gravity are always written down and signed by the involved parties. The expansion of NATO clearly was and remains as strategic a concern (to all parties) whether then or now. Note, for example, Russia's current demand for a "written legally binding response".
So we are either to assume Soviet team (Gorbachev et al.) were either incompetent or assets of the West, or, USSR capitulated and was not in a position to make legal binding demands regarding NATO and had to be satisfied with warm non-binding backroom reassurances.
I think it is the latter, and now, post Soviet Russia (caught between a pincer of Europe and China) believes it has a stronger hand and wants to re-negotiate.
“not ready to deploy” in 1990, "could not foresee circumstances” in 1991. These aren't open-ended commitments, but exactly the opposite.
Every country can make their own decisions regarding their international treaties and alliances. The NATO expansion is also not something that’s happening against the will of the people in eastern countries. After the Crimea annexation, most countries in that sphere of influence turned anti-russia and more pro-nato. The majority of Ukrainians is currently also pro joining the NATO.
> Since June 2014, polls showed that about 50% of those asked supported Ukrainian NATO membership. Some 69% of Ukrainians want to join NATO, according to a June 2017 poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, compared to 28% support in 2012 when Yanukovych was in power
The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...