Comment by Evgeny Daynov:
Shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, a long-time American diplomat who had been negotiating with the Russians since the time of the USSR was asked by some media outlet: "How do we know when a Russian official is lying?". The answer: "A Russian official is talking? So he is lying.".
Russian officials have been lying for centuries, and they do so even when they will have no more benefit from the lie than from the truth. And yet they lie. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to understand what the lying Russian is really thinking and intending to do. There are methods for decoding.
Who started the war in Ukraine
Putin himself can be cited as an example. Let's see what we have learned these days from the torrent of lies that he has once again spewed out under the slogan "we did not start any war in Ukraine". The thesis, of course, has been the same since 2007: NATO had promised Moscow not to expand eastward, and then the pact constantly did exactly that: "They moved, they moved, they reached Ukraine... And they forced us to start the special military operation."
"They promised us at the time - to Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev - that they would not expand NATO. The result - one expansion after another. Despite our numerous protests. They spat on all their promises and on the interests of the Russian Federation in the security sphere."
We note the Russian president's return to the hooligan jargon that he once made fashionable, and continue: "The so-called winners of the Cold War - not only the USA, but the entire collective West - decided that something needed to be fixed: why should Russia, no longer the USSR, but Russia, which had lost significant potential, enjoy the same benefits as the victorious country in World War II."
After that, Putin continues, the Western countries "began to change the rules, and immediately… Remember the events in Yugoslavia".
Was there a promise made to Gorbachev?
Before we see what this man is actually telling us, let's untangle the lies. There is and never was a "Western" promise to Soviet President Gorbachev that NATO would not "expand eastward". Gorbachev himself said in October 2014 (when the Russians had already invaded Crimea and Donbas): "The issue of NATO expansion was not discussed at all, no one raised it at that time… We discussed (i.e. with the American administration) that NATO military structures would not enter the territory of the then German Democratic Republic (i.e. East Germany) after the reunification of Germany… We all did everything possible and necessary to document this political obligation. And it was kept".
In the only document of September 1990, signed by the "West" and Russia on the occasion of NATO expansion, the following is written: "After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, German troops attached to NATO will be able to be stationed on the territory of the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons will not be stationed there".
That's it. That's it. Everything else is the usual Russian lies, aimed at presenting Russia as a country constantly lied to by the West. I don't know exactly what previous lie Putin was referring to that day when he blamed the West for the collapse of Yugoslavia, but everyone remembers: the civil wars that led to the collapse were started by Moscow's then-friend Slobodan Milosevic, who attacked all the other Yugoslav republics except Montenegro.
No, the West did not want to eliminate Russia, but rather provided aid to the starving
The blatant lie is the general position, which is a dogma for the entire Russian leadership, that after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the West wanted to eliminate the remaining Russia. The truth is exactly the opposite.
As every time, starting in the 19th century, when the Russian rulers' own stupidity plunged the country into a hunger crisis, the United States announced Operation "Giving Hope" in February 1992. (Provide Hope) to feed the starving Russian people. Hundreds of American military planes flew across the Atlantic to Russia, loaded with food and medicine for Russia. Soon, all of Western Europe joined the operation. The “Collective West“ dropped tens of thousands of tons of food and medicine into Russia by the end of the operation in September 1994.
Thus he saved and stabilized Russia, then the West did everything possible to bring it into the ranks of civilized countries. He invited it to the club of the richest - the G-7 format, as well as to the World Trade Organization. He included it in the world banking exchange. He began negotiations to include Russia in the EU and let it into NATO within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.
Putin's response came in 2007 in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, in which he accused the United States of interfering in Russian affairs and of failing to comply with international law – It was the US that did everything possible to include Russia in the scope of these laws…
Such was the will of the countries that experienced Russia's predatory temper
Yes, since 1999, more and more former Moscow-dependent countries that gained their independence from the Kremlin have joined NATO – despite the enormous resistance within NATO. Who were these countries? Those bordering Russia. Why did they want to be in NATO? Because, unlike the smart heads in Washington, Paris and London, they had experienced Russia's predatory temper for centuries and knew that the bear might be plucked at the moment, but after it smooths its fur, it will snarl again.
No Russian - official or not - can understand this. They cannot imagine that neighboring countries smaller than Russia could have their own will and make their own decisions. They themselves live in a semi-feudal society in which no one is independent in their decisions, and therefore they cannot imagine that their eastern neighbors do not carry out the orders of the “big brother“ – of the “collective West“. The idea of national sovereignty is completely incomprehensible, as is the idea of freedom of speech or the separation of powers, for example. In this respect, Putin is the exponent of the entire wretchedness of Russian political culture.
Putin's Message
Let's go back to where we started. Buried in these Putin lies is a message: he is telling us what he intends to do (with us, the European countries near his border). This message is an expression of that fundamental, identity-defining principle that lies at the deepest depths of the Russian psyche: for permanent war.
I explain. Before invading Ukraine, Putin repeatedly and defiantly ordered NATO to "pull back to its borders from before the first Eastern European countries joined the Alliance." The intention was obvious. The countries of Eastern Europe, which he believed were incapable of making their own decisions, were to be torn from the umbrella of the "collective West" and returned to Moscow's subservience. When that did not happen, the Russians decided to act with military force. They invaded Ukraine to the fanfare of their own propaganda, which promised the rapid conquest of all of Europe "to Lisbon." Ukraine was simply the first in this series, since it was considered the weakest - “to Kiev in three days“.
Three days are already turning into five years, but ask yourself this question: since it turned out that Russia had been accumulating huge military and financial reserves for 20 years, and it was planning to crush Ukraine in three days – what did it need these reserves for? Answer: so that they would have enough to do the rest of their job. After Ukraine, to take over the Baltic states in the north and the Balkans – in the south, in a “big pincers&rdash; operation. And then, as is the Soviet military doctrine, to strike in the center – Poland, Slovakia and beyond.
What is the reality?
It seems that this is what Putin told us again the other day when he accused “NATO expansion&rdash; about the war in Ukraine: this war will never stop until NATO "withdraws" from Central and Eastern Europe. This is in Putin's head. What will happen in reality? The Ukrainians made Russia spend all the reserves it was accumulating to take over Europe. The Russian bear is once again plucked and weakened. When the inevitable Russian famine begins, the "collective West" will again feed the hungry Russians, who will again hate him while they eat his canned goods and drink his aspirins.