Jens Stoltenberg stating directly that Russia’s Ukraine invasion is directly about NATO expansion.
Stoltenberg’s NATO remarks:
Archive version in case the original “disappears”
About in the middle (my emphasis):
"Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.
"The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that. "
Right from the horses mouth there, Matt. If you want to know why Russia invaded it is because they have been saying, since the 1990s, that NATO expansion eastward is unacceptable. "Of course we didn't sign that." "We rejected that."
We took advantage of Russia's weakness after the fall of the USSR and we broke our agreement with Gorbachev never to expand Eastward from reunified Germany. Well, Russia isn't weak anymore and they remember how we fucked them over.
There is an old saying, "Be nice to people on your way up. You'll be seeing them again on your way down."
