Putin Wants NATO To Abide By Pledge Not To Expand Eastward

Russian leader Vladimir Putin may not be what many Americans would call a "good guy." But are his current demands all that unreasonable, given the circumstances? Brett Bachman wrote for Salon.

Photo Insert: Putin's central demand is that NATO removes troops from countries that joined the group of US-allied nations after 1997.

"It's doubtful that Vladimir Putin wants war with the US, and unclear whether he is willing to risk a large-scale ground invasion of Ukraine. What he wants is for Russia's grievances to be taken seriously," Bachman quoted Salon contributor Glenn Sacks as saying.

Putin's central demand is that NATO removes troops from countries that joined the group of US-allied nations after 1997. In 1990, under George H.W. Bush, Secretary of State James Baker repeatedly promised Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that if the USSR let the Warsaw Pact nations leave, NATO would not "move one inch eastward."

As was detailed in declassified US, Soviet, German, British and French documents released in 2017, Bush and the leaders of West Germany, the UK, and France gave similar assurances.

Today, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and two others, in addition to the three former Baltic Soviet republics and several formerly neutral countries, are members of NATO.

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