.@SecBlinken says “NATO never promised not to admit new members.” And “There was no promise that NATO wouldn’t expand.” There are historians who would disagree.
— Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) January 7, 2022
An excerpt from, "Russia urges West to move quickly to guarantee Ukraine won't join NATO" by Murray Brewster, CBC, December 23, 2021:
The Russian leader charged during his news conference that the West had "cheated, blatantly swindled" Moscow by offering verbal pledges in the 1990s not to expand NATO's presence east, and then enlarging to incorporate former Soviet bloc countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet republics in the Baltics.
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999, followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In subsequent years, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia also joined, bringing NATO's membership to 30 nations.
"It's not us who threaten anyone," Putin said. "Is it us who came to the U.S. or British borders? No, they have come to us, and they now say that Ukraine will be in NATO."
An excerpt from, "Alexander Solzhenitsyn On The New Russia" Forbes, Early 90s, Interviewed by journalist Paul Klebnikov:
Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of Ukraine.
In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern and southern territories of today’s Ukraine.
Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a satrap, made a “gift” of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not manage to make Ukraine a “gift” of Sevastopol, which remained a separate city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.
Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.
Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?
As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.
I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of success for Ukraine–but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without grabbing Russian provinces. And not in the form of a “great power,” the concept on which Ukrainian nationalists have placed their bets. They are acting out and trumpeting a cult of force, persistently inflating Russia into the image of an “enemy.” Militant slogans are proclaimed. And the Ukrainian army is being indoctrinated with the propaganda that war with Russia is inevitable.
For every country, great power status deforms and harms the national character. I have never wished great power status for Russia, and do not wish it for the United States. I don’t wish it for Ukraine. She would not be able to perform even the cultural task required to achieve great power status: In her current borders, 63% of the population consider Russian to be their native language, a number three times larger than the number of ethnic Russians. And all these people will have to be re-educated in the Ukrainian language, while the language itself will have to be raised to international standards and usage. This is a task that would require over 100 years.
An excerpt from, "Who Stole Russia?" By Richard Lourie, The Washington Post, October 15, 2000:
While comparing Yeltsin to Lincoln during the first Chechen War, Clinton also actively pursued a policy that Russians viewed as aggressive, if not hostile. Accepting Poland, Hungary and the Czech republic into NATO, bombing Serbia, attempting to divert the transportation of Caspian Sea oil away from Russia--none of these could be seen as anything but encroachments.
Video Title: Why Russia can't accept Ukraine as a NATO country. Source: mengutimur. Date Published: November 25, 2015. Description:
Vladimir Vladimirovich Posner (also spelled Pozner; Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович По́знер; born 1 April 1934) is a Russian/French/American best known in the West for appearing on television to represent and explain the views of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He was memorable as a spokesman for the Soviets in part because he grew up in the United States and speaks flawless American English with a New York accent.
Excerpt from the video:
When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and later George H. W. Bush, were negotiating the relations that formed in the years of Perestroika, when the talks were about unification of Germany, and when the Soviet Union went for it, James Baker, who was United States Secretary of State, said that, if the Soviet Union goes for the unification of Germany, he himself was entrusted on behalf of President Bush that NATO won't move an inch to the east. There were witnesses when he said this.
The unification happened. At first there wasn't any movement. But later, when the Soviet Union disappeared and when Bill Clinton came to power, this changed fairly quickly. Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovakia became members. NATO was moving closer and closer to the borders of Russia. Finally, the Baltic countries became members. These countries have a border with Russia. When the Russian leadership asked a question about the agreement that was made, the Americans said that there was such an agreement but that it was with the Soviet Union. The Americans said that Russia isn't the Soviet Union.
Video Title: How the Bolsheviks created nationalism in Ukraine. Source: ulaghchi. Date Published: November 14, 2018. Description:
Andrei Fursov (Андрей Фурсов) - Russian historian, sociologist, writer, organizer of science.
In general, the Bolsheviks conducted a Ukranization of Ukraine in the 1920s. You know that the Bolsheviks gave away Donbass and Kharkiv to Ukraine. Here's why this was done. The Ukraine to the west of the Dnieper is a crummy village. The Bolsheviks wanted Ukraine to become an industrial-proletarian region. So, they gave away Donbass and Kharkiv, which never belonged to Ukraine before that. In general, a course of Ukranization was taken.
This is a result of the fact that for the last quarter century we practically didn't work with Ukraine. It's sufficient to remember what our ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin was doing. He played the accordion, sang songs with the Ukrainian oligarchs, and made gas deals. I don't know what Mikhail Zurabov was doing, but I know what the Americans were doing. The Americans divided Ukrainian society into sectors from the bottom up. They worked on all the sectors by hammering into the heads of Ukrainians that they're not quite Russians, that Russians are Moskals, and they taught the Ukrainians to hate Russians. This is certainly our defeat.
