Russian MFA: NATO has broken its promise not to expand eastward

The diplomat cited a video published by Germany's ARD and Der Spiegel, in which on 2 February 1990 the then German Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich Genscher and U.S. Secretary of State James Baker said that NATO had no intentions to expand to the east, and this applies "not only to the GDR, but also in general."

"Little did Genscher and Baker know that 32 years on NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (state secretary at the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment in 1990) would easily dismiss their words: "It is up for 30 NATO member states to decide. There is no document anywhere in which NATO countries agreed to abandon the policy enshrined in the NATO founding treaty, in the Washington treaty," Maria Zakharova said.

"So what kind of organization is this, if every year its members and representatives refute each other on fundamental issues and continue to make statements that do not correspond to the policy being pursued?" the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

On 18 February Der Spiegel reported, citing the archival document, that Western countries really promised the Soviet Union not to expand NATO to the east. According to it, initially the document was classified as "secret". The document is the minutes of a meeting between representatives of the foreign ministries of the USA, UK, France, and Germany that took place in Bonn on 6 March 1991.

“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the document quotes U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz. “NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added.

In December 2021 Russia sent the United States and NATO proposals for security guarantees, which included demands that NATO agree not to expand into former Soviet Republics and that the military situation should return to what it was at the time of the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act in May 1997. At the end of January, Washington and Brussels handed over to Moscow their written responses, from which it follows that the West would not make concessions that were fundamental for Russia.