In 2021, NATO Tore Up The Treaty Proposed By Moscow To Avoid War

Tensions continue to rise between the North Atlantic Alliance and Russia that accuses the West of direct and increasingly dangerous involvement in the armed conflict in Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at a hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on September 7 in Brussels, explained what reasons prompted Russia to launch a military operation against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

“In autumn of 2021,” Stoltenberg said, “Russian President Vladimir Putin sent us a draft treaty: he wanted NATO to sign a commitment not to expand any further. This is what he sent us, and we, of course, did not sign this.” According to Stoltenberg, stopping the approach of NATO military structures to the borders of Russia “was (for Moscow) a precondition for not invading Ukraine.” The NATO Secretary General emphasized that “Russia also wanted us to remove the military infrastructure deployed in all countries that joined since 1997, which meant that we would have to withdraw NATO from Central and Eastern Europe, introducing a second-class membership grade. We rejected him, and he went to war to avoid closer borders with NATO.”

In 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, during the German reunification process, asked United States President Ronald Reagan and then-Secretary of State James Baker to give explicit guarantees of NATO non-expansion towards Eastern European countries, back then all members of the Warsaw Pact.

In July of this year, in a telephone interview, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger admitted that Mikhail Gorbachev was indeed promised not to expand the North Atlantic Alliance to the east, but this was a verbal promise, not registered anywhere. “I know this is true, but it was never put in writing. Therefore, we are right about not having any formal commitments. But that was part of Secretary Baker’s commitment,” said the prominent politician who turned 100 on May 27.

This means that the Kremlin’s concerns about Russia’s security were never heard. And the situation is getting worse every day, as NATO is seriously thinking about Ukraine joining the Alliance. “Ukraine has never been so close to joining NATO. This reflects the political reality that nations are sovereign nations of their own making. And Ukraine obviously has the right to choose its own path, and it is up to Ukraine and NATO allies to decide when Ukraine becomes a member. Russia cannot veto the accession of any sovereign and independent state,” Stoltenberg told European parliamentarians.

And as early as 2023, NATO leaders expect allies to increase defense spending by an average of 8 percent. According to Stoltenberg, “this is the biggest increase in spending in decades, but it is necessary because when tensions rise, we must invest in security.”