Before it acquired nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union, to protect itself from a surprise attack by Western Capitalists, Stalin made sure to control the nations of Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria.

They became a buffer and or a tripwire zone in case of war.

As the Soviet Union was falling apart, it would have been impossible for Gorbachev and Yeltsin not to have assurances from the Americans that their Western borders would be safe.

There are contradictory assessments, if such assurances were made by the Americans. Yet, the following are recorded in history.

One key statement came during a Feb. 9, 1990, meeting between Baker and Gorbachev.

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

After explaining why the U.S. wanted a reunited Germany to stay within the framework of NATO, Baker told Gorbachev that “if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”

“I put the following question to (Gorbachev),” Baker recounted in a letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. “‘Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?’”

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.

On Dec. 5, 1994, Ukraine signed a set of political agreements that would guarantee the country’s sovereignty and independence in return for accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Signed in Budapest, the memorandum would lay grounds for Ukraine to dispose of its nuclear arsenal in return for the U.S., the U.K., and Russia to guarantee not to use economic and military means to attack the country.

The provision on non-nuclear status was enshrined in the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, adopted by the Ukrainian parliament on July 16, 1990. The provisions on the future nuclear status were also confirmed when Ukraine gained independence in 1991.

While tsars ruled Russia by divine election from birth, Vladimir Lenin, through violent revolution, general secretaries of the Soviet Communist Party, climbed up the party ladder – over the bodies of others – to the politburo and awaiting their turn for the top job. Vladimir Putin was the singular exception.

Twenty-six years ago, Vladimir Putin was handed power on a Kremlin plate. The former officer of the KGB – the Soviet security service – was handpicked by President Boris Yeltsin and his inner circle to lead Russia into the 21st Century.

Putin was introduced to Yeltsin and the party, and while working together, they noticed, in a short time, Putin’s fantastic work. He was brilliant at formulating ideas and analyzing and arguing his case. Putin had shown himself to be a liberal and a democrat who wanted to continue market reforms and who was single-minded at achieving results; the perfect man for the job.

In August 1999, Boris Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as prime minister. It was a clear sign that President Yeltsin was preparing Putin for the Kremlin.

Yeltsin was not due to leave office for another year, but in December 1999, he made the surprise and highly unusual decision to leave early.

On New Year’s Eve 1999, Boris Yeltsin recorded his final TV address to the nation in the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin became acting president. Three months later, he won the election.

In a March 2000 interview with the British television journalist David Frost, Putin was asked whether “it is possible Russia could join NATO.” Putin, who at the time was serving as acting president and weeks later was elected to his first term, responded, “I don’t see why not.”

In his interview with Oliver Stone, Putin declared that during his meeting with Clinton in 2000, ‘We would consider an option that Russia might join NATO.” Clinton answered, “I have no objection.” However, the entire U.S. delegation got very nervous, and this was dismissed.

From the above two stories, Putin’s suggestion to join NATO would have put to rest any probability of war on the European continent for decades to come. Unfortunately, his suggestion was rebuffed, insinuating in his mind that NATO would pose an existential threat to Russia in the future.

Russia has repeatedly accused NATO of stoking tensions with its expansion toward its borders. NATO says it poses no threat to Russia and that it is a defensive alliance; NATO was created to oppose the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, and both are gone. Weapons used for defense can instantly be used for offense.

1999: Three former Warsaw Pact nations — the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland — join NATO.
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2004: The most significant NATO expansion to date, as seven countries have become members: Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The latter three are the only former Soviet republics to have joined the alliance.

2009: Croatia and Albania become NATO members.

I am sure our readers are aware that NATO is not only moving East to Russia’s borders but, in a manner, is also encircling it. No Russian leader can possibly accept such a threat.

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian and Russian politician who was democratically elected as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) from 2006 to 2010. Yanukovych was removed from the presidency in the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which followed months of protests against him. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.

By 2013, the economy of Ukraine was in disarray. Despite the then president Yanukovych requesting the U.S. and the EU to support the country in bailing it out of the economic devastation, these governments seemed not to be concerned with his problems.

It was because of this that the government of Ukraine chose to accept an offer from Russia for its economic bailout. The USA seemed unconcerned regarding the well-being of Ukraine, allowing the economic collapse to happen instead of employing other forms and strategies for solving the perceived problems in the country.

The enmity between the U.S. and the administration of President Yanukovych Victor stemmed from the close ties Yanukovych had with Russia, considered an ardent enemy of the U.S. by many in Congress, especially neocons.

In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests known as “Euromaidan” began in response to President Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia. These were financed and orchestrated by Obama’s CIA, with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland as point leader.

These anti-Russian organized demonstrations made Putin very worried that more destabilization would follow. He decided to pre-emptively take matters into his own hands by taking over the Crimea and the Donbas areas that harbor a majority of Russians.

Crimea had been for centuries (since 1783) part of Russia until 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, the Ukrainian president of the USSR, decided unilaterally to give it to Ukraine as the 300th-anniversary gift to commemorate the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement.

Putin repeatedly made it clear that Ukraine must not be part of NATO. The Western leaders underestimated how important a red line this was for Russia, yet they were willing to bring it into NATO.

NATO must have forked out over 300 billion dollars in help to Ukraine. At least 50%, Zelenskyy himself admitted, are unaccounted for. In the meantime, over 1,000,000 Russians and Ukrainians are dead, and more are dying daily with no end in the fight.

No matter which side any of us stands in support of, one thing must be agreed upon: it must be negotiated for an end.