The insane rhetoric of Biden and Zelensky and specifically entertaining the idea of Ukraine joining NATO is what led to this tragedy.
It’d be like Mexico joining the USSR. Do you think the USA would simply let that happen?
> Ukraine only exists as a post Soviet country because we agreed with Russia that they (Ukraine) would never have nukes nor be a part of NATO.
Key documents:
* Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Helsinki_Final_Act
* Memorandum on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1994): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ukraine._Memorandum_on_Securi...
* Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation (1997): https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm
* Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation (1997): https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...
> In early February 1990, U.S. leaders made the Soviets an offer. According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, U.S. could make “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.
Whether they were written down and signed is nowhere near as relevant as whether they were actually promised. The word of the counterparty is what makes and enforces a diplomatic deal, not some piece of paper.
All top Soviets have refuted this. When the German ZDF channel asked Gorbachev about it in 2014 when Russia used this as a pretext for invading Crimea, he directly called it a myth on camera. So did his minister of defense Yazov and minister of foreign affairs Shevardnadze.
Gorbachev even explained that claims of such promise make no sense. Elected leaders of democracies cannot promise what their successors will or will not do. Voters set the direction. Trump is not bound by what Biden, Obama, Bush or Clinton allegedly promised someone in private decades ago. "Had we had an agreement, we would have written it down", he summed it up.
Shevardnadze went further and explained how this myth misrepresents the actual talks they held in 1990 regarding German reunification. The talks were about placement of foreign troops in East Germany before the Soviet forces had left East Germany. They agreed that only West German Bundeswehr would enter East Germany and take command alone to avoid getting multinational foreign NATO forces intermixed with Soviet forces. This was to prevent any potential misunderstandings that could spiral out of control during the handover. Germans upheld their part and everything went as they had agreed.
Shevardnadze said that during his tenure (1985-1991), the question of Eastern Europe joining NATO was not discussed even once with Western representatives, Warsaw Pact countries, or in the communist party circles in Moscow. Why would they discuss it if they didn't expect Warsaw Pact to dissolve? It came as a surprise. Nobody expected that the USSR itself would disintegrate, and parts of it would declare independence and join NATO.
Gorbachev, Yazov and Shevardnadze have passed away, but Shevardnadze's successor who was in charge of Russian foreign affairs from 1990 to 1996 is still around and active on social media. If you're not convinced, you can contact him directly and let him explain this myth personally: https://x.com/andreivkozyrev/ Putin's senior advisor from 2000 to 2005, who departed over disagreements with Putin's increasingly authoritarian style, is also active and recently published a video where he tears the myth apart (in Russian, sadly): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFCNwGjko54
This myth is rather unique because three different generations of officials have refuted it: the Soviet representatives (late 1980s / early 1990s), people from Yeltsin's tenure (1990s), and people from early Putin's admin (early 2000s). Rarely do myths get so strongly refuted. No paper trail exist either. Western countries make a huge military commitment, but it doesn't get mentioned anywhere in internal Soviet meeting notes, private diaries, or other sources? That's hard to believe.
I find this myth a very good subject for a case study of a hoax. It is internally coherent and derived from an actual fact (the talks about German reunification), but doesn't connect to anything else. It floats around in isolation.
For fucks sake, who gives a shit about what Russia thinks? They suppress democracy and political opposition. They poison journalists outside of Russia. They jail and kill public interest figures. They kidnap and jail Americans on false pretexts.