why Russia claims to have been “betrayed” by NATO

Since the start of the crisis in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has laid down a number of red lines prior to the withdrawal of Russian troops massed on the border. At the head, he calls for guarantees so that Ukraine never joins NATO, the military and political alliance inherited from the Cold War which today associates the United States, Canada, and 28 European countries.

Paradoxically, Russia is indeed the victim in Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric. And the aggressor is NATO. “We have been cheated, deceived”he said again in a speech on February 1.

“We were promised that the NATO infrastructure would not advance an inch to the east. They said one thing and did the opposite.”

Vladimir Poutine

in a speech

This idea of ​​Western betrayal has been at the heart of Russian arguments for years. But it is based on a questionable interpretation of historical facts and obscures changes in the geopolitical context.

In Vladimir Putin’s argument, everything rests on a promise, that which NATO allegedly made to the USSR, then to Russia, in the 1990s: the transatlantic alliance would not integrate the former Soviet republics. This argument is based on known statements and declassified documents (in English). “When the Berlin Wall fell in 1990, we wondered about the status of the future reunified Germany.explains Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, associate researcher at the Thomas More Institute and specialist in security issues in Europe. Should it be neutral or join NATO? In order for the USSR to accept the second option, then US Secretary of State James Baker assured Mikhail Gorbachev that “NATO’s current military jurisdiction will not extend an inch to the east”.

“At the time, it was logical. The USSR and its alliances would only collapse from 1991. The idea of ​​expanding NATO to central and eastern Europe was out of place, we spoke only of the GDR.”

Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, associate researcher at the Thomas More Institute

at franceinfo

For David Teurtrie, associate researcher at the Europes-Eurasia Research Center and specialist in the geopolitics of Russia, these statements were still useful: “It was necessary to reassure Gorbachev and not to reinforce the opponents of the ongoing rapprochement [entre l’Europe centrale et l’Otan] within the Soviet power. The integration of the GDR risked hardening their positions.” Except that the treaty that emerged from these discussions in 1990 does not explicitly prohibit enlargement.

According to Vladimir Putin, the Western coalition has continued to mislead Russia. In 1993, US President Bill Clinton proposed to his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin a new international structure, the “Partnership for Peace”, to guarantee European security without going through NATO. Enlargement would be studied as “a long-term possibility”. But in 1997, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic were finally invited to join the alliance, which they did in 1999.

If, once again, NATO had not made a formal commitment, Russian officials might have interpreted it differently. According to David Teurtrie, “They really felt cheated. If Gorbachev and Yeltsin contributed so actively to the dismantling of the Soviet empire, it was because they thought that in exchange, Russia would be integrated into European security and the concert of nations But they considered that the United States was on the contrary taking advantage of Russia’s weakness to expand NATO”.

These different readings of history quickly clashed. “The controversy over the broken promise existed as early as the 1990s, but in private, between diplomats”, explains Mary Elise Sarotte, historian at John Hopkins University in Washington. As early as 1997, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who claimed to have consulted the archives of the negotiations between NATO and the USSR, had declared to the Clinton administration: “If the NATO infrastructure moves towards Russia, it will be unacceptable.”

Vladimir Putin has not always resorted to this interpretation. “When he came to power in 2000, he made a number of gestures to try to dialogue with Westerners, especially France and Germany”, emphasizes David Teurtrie. But this accommodating posture did not hold. In 2007, Vladimir Putin endorsed the rhetoric of betrayal in a speech in Munich. In 2014, to justify the invasion of Crimea, he drove home the point: “They lied to us on several occasions, they made decisions behind our backs, they presented us with a fait accompli.“

“Vladimir Putin has admitted himself that there was no binding commitment. Rather, he uses it as a moral argument.”

David Teurtrie, researcher at the Europes-Eurasia Research Center

at franceinfo

An argument which allows him to accuse the members of NATO of liars and to make credible the possibility of an attack by the American allies on Russia. According to Mary Elise Sarotte, Moscow’s objective would be to overhaul the current security order: “Vladimir Putin refuses that Russia does not have a say in the organization of security in Europe built after the Cold War”at a time when she was too weak to influence decisions. “He uses all the means at his disposal to challenge it.”

Declassified documents (in English) show that, from the 1990s, Western diplomats were afraid that Russia would feel cheated, rightly or wrongly, if NATO went back on its declarations. But for Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, the evolution of geopolitics forced the West to rethink its strategy: “The 1990s were a period of great disruption, the collapse of the USSR and the Soviet bloc completely renewed the situation. Could we imagine a huge gray zone with an undetermined status, right in the middle of Europe?”

Especially since it was the countries of Central and Eastern Europe themselves who asked to join NATO. Mary Elise Sarotte recalls that the war waged by Russia in Chechnya in 1994 reinforced their concerns and their choice to turn to the American coalition. Could she deny their sovereignty and refuse this choice? An argument still used today by the West: “It is up to Ukraine to decide its path, when and whether to become a member or not”said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on December 10.

More importantly, unlike NATO, Russia did break binding written promises. In particular the Budapest memorandum, signed in 1994, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine. A promise that was shattered with the annexation of Crimea by Moscow in 2014.

“Westerns respond to Russia: ‘You say that we have violated a commitment which is not present in any treaty, but you had signed the Budapest memorandum, which guarantees the territorial integrity of Ukraine’.”

David Teurtrie, researcher at the Europes-Eurasia Research Center

at franceinfo

Some specialists also point out that, contrary to what she claims, Russia was not excluded from security in Europe after the Cold War. Partnership for Peace in 1994, founding act on relations between NATO and Russia in 1997, NATO-Russia Council in 2002… “Enlargement has been negotiated”, says Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier. But according to David Teurtrie, these partnerships were “above all a means of swallowing the NATO enlargement pill”.

An enlargement process which is far from being unanimous within NATO itself. “Berlin and Paris have always been opposed to Ukraine’s membershipemphasizes David Teurtrie. And today, even the United States does not want it. But to admit it would be seen as an act of weakness vis-à-vis the Kremlin.” What, in the current balance of power, neither side can afford.