Who breached promises – NATO or Russia?

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With NATO's expansion and Europe's push to militarise Ukraine, history's forgotten promises resurface - was Russia the real violator, or has the West rewritten the rules? And at what cost to Europe's future?

Speaking to media after the Euro-Summit on Ukraine in London (March 2), British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a critical, albeit dubious, point about a possible "breach" of a deal by Russia. He said, "We cannot accept a weak deal like Minsk – which Russia can breach with ease."

By linking the word "breach" to Russia, Starmer implied that the latter has often violated agreements, suggesting that Europe must work to put Ukraine in a strong negotiating position. However, this dubious insinuation belies history. In 2017, the National Security Archive at George Washington University declassified 30 documents related to commitments and assurances made by Western leaders to Russia in 1990, when the fall of the Berlin Wall appeared imminent.

No major Western media outlet ever reported on or referenced these documents, noted authors Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton in a study published for NATO Watch in January 2018.

Let us examine the historical record to determine who actually breached commitments.

Starmer's statement reminds us of American international relations experts such as Prof Jeffrey Sachs and Prof John Joseph Mearsheimer. Both call out the West for its unilateral critique of Russia without context. They have long argued that NATO's relentless eastward expansion – after Moscow dismantled Warsaw Pact – triggered security alarms in Moscow. It was, in fact, a continuous US-led NATO strategy to create a sort of "ring of fire" around Russia and China.

Military bases in the South China Sea region and the eastern Pacific Rim (Japan, Koreas, the Philippines, Australia and others) served as a bulwark against China. Similarly, in Eastern Europe, the continuous accession of multiple Baltic states projected NATO's power eastward, eventually forcing Russia to respond by taking Crimea in 2014. More importantly, historical evidence suggests that it was NATO that breached its promises to Moscow.

The declassified documents revealed a torrent of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and into 1991, according to a NATO Watch paper, published on January 2, 2018.

President George HW Bush had assured President Gorbachev during the Malta Summit in December 1989 that the US would not take advantage of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests, stating, "I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall."

The first concrete assurance came on January 31, 1990 when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher made a major public speech in Tutzing, Bavaria, on German unification. He said, "The changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an impairment of Soviet security interests. Therefore, NATO should rule out an expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders."

In February 1991, then-US Secretary of State James Baker assured his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, that in a post-Cold War Europe, NATO would no longer be belligerent - "less of a military organization, much more of a political one, with no need for independent capability."

He promised Shevardnadze "iron-clad guarantees that NATO's jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward." On the same day in Moscow, Baker famously told Gorbachev that the alliance would not move "one inch to the east."

In a meeting with Gorbachev the following day (February 10), German Chancellor Helmut Kohl reiterated the same assurance: "We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity. We have to find a reasonable resolution. I correctly understand the security interests of the Soviet Union."

According to the NATO Watch paper, "The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991. Discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory. Subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled over NATO expansion were founded on written contemporaneous memos and telephone conversations at the highest levels."

The declassified documents list Bush Senior, Genscher, Kohl, CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Mitterrand, British PMs Thatcher and John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner. Their assurances against NATO expansion evaporated into thin air in 1997 when Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were invited into NATO, followed by formal accession of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia on March 29, 2004.

Albania and Croatia became official members in April 2009, followed by Montenegro in June 2017. The Republic of North Macedonia joined in March 2020, Finland in April 2023, and Sweden in March 2024.

The documents released by the GWU archives echoed the criticism by former CIA Director Robert Gates, who warned against "pressing ahead with the expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn't happen."

It is the latter-day Western leaders who have breached their commitment not to pursue NATO's eastward enlargement. The mainstream Western media also contributed to the falsification of historical facts by consistently demonising Russia - projecting it as an encroaching monster.

The Euro-Summit in London and its four-point declaration on Ukraine represent yet another attempt to enforce the permanent militarisation of the Ukraine-Russia border. Without the US military's involvement in this coalition the efficacy of the declaration remains doubtful. Further militarisation of Ukraine could lead to the hemorrhaging of Western European economies and deepen political divisions leading to far-reaching consequences.

As the Euro-Summit's latest declarations pave the way for further escalation, it is worth asking: How much longer can 32-member NATO dismiss its own role in fueling tensions? And, more importantly, what price will Europe pay for ignoring the lessons of history?