Vladimir Putin Continues to Bring Up the Fact That NATO Promised Not to Expand East and Now We Can Say That He’s Right, but Mikhail Gorbachev (then Soviet President) Should Have Gotten it in Writing
I’ve been saying this for awhile now, but never had firm proof that the Soviets were told NATO wouldn’t expand its influence or military past Germany. Now, it looks like the document that proves this has been uncovered. This document from the British National Archives was resurfaced in a report by the German newspaper Der Spiegel reveals that the Soviet Union was promised NATO wouldn’t expand eastward during negotiations at the end of the Cold War. More superficially, NATO and Russia agreed to Elbe as being the furthest East the expansion would progress.
Reality has become FAR different than what this promise originally stated, however. NATO has greatly expanded it’s allied countries and influence and is knocking on the door of Russia while trying to add Ukraine.
Getting back to the document, it is the minutes of a meeting between foreign ministry officials from the US, France, Germany, and Britain in Bonn, Germany, on March 6th, 1991. Officials referenced the “two plus four” negotiations that were held with the Soviet Union in 1990 to reunify East and West Germany.
“We made it clear in the ‘two plus four’ negotiations that we would not expand NATO beyond the Elbe. We can therefore not offer NATO membership to Poland and the others,” German diplomat Jürgen Chrobog said at the 1991 talks.
The other countries of France, Britain and the US also agreed on the issue of NATO expansion, including Raymond Seitz, who served as the US assistant secretary of state for Canada and Europe at the time.
“We have made it clear to the Soviet Union in two plus four talks and elsewhere that we will not take advantage of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” Seitz said.
The document was previously classified and was discovered by Joshua Shifrinson who is an international relations professor at Boston University. The minutes document backs up the claims of Putin and gives Russia more reasoning behind their latest moves. Then Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, would have been wise to get a more formal and official deal done after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, however.
NATO has completely ignored this promise and has not only grown from 16 to 30 members, but also absorbed many previous Soviet bloc nations. A few of those nations lie on the border with Russia, but I believe Ukraine matters so much to them due to the distance from Moscow. Besides Belarus (which is a Russian ally), Ukraine would mark a closeness to Putin that I don’t think he’d like too much.
As I previously noted, an official treaty or written deal would have been smart, but this is actually something Putin has been demanding from NATO and the US. His “demands” that Biden keeps choking about on the news is simply keeping Ukraine out of NATO, on top of Georgia and Moldova. He also would like his sphere of influence to extend beyond his borders and for NATO to remove medium range missiles from the areas around him.
Think of this issue from his perspective for a minute and ask yourself how you would feel with those allied against you circling your country and coming ever so much closer. Putin won’t admit it, but he’s worried. The reason why he didn’t do much under President Trump wasn’t because they were buddies, but it was because Trump was against NATO and was always willing to talk directly and not simply blow him off with a letter like Biden has done.
Unfortunately, we have many boomer Warhawks in our government that are mad about the Cold War still and absolutely want a war with Russia. Putin is also not very liked by the globalists since he stopped them from doing to his country what they’ve done to so many. This wasn’t long after the 1991 meeting.
Overall, Putin may not be a great guy, but is Biden? Is Trudeau? Are any of these world “leaders” that great? I mean, we’re supposed to sit here and worry about Ukraine when our own governments are locking us up without due process or trampling us with horses.
I think we have our own issues to deal with…
Thank you for reading!
