Is Putin Right About Nato's Eastward Expansion? - TLDR News

One of Putin's biggest complaints currently is that NATO betrayed its commitment regarding eastward expansion, moving ever closer to the Russian border. So in this video, we evaluate Putin's claims and if NATO really has broken its commitments.

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[Snugggg]

The greatest recruitment tool for NATO has always been Russia's behavior. if they were not such a difficult neighbor to have, then fewer countries would feel the need to seek defensive alliances.

[kisfekete]

Umm, speaking from a Hungarian POW (edit: POV) at the time, NATO did not have to encourage the Eastern European states to join. Russians did that job for them! We had 40 years of comradely Russian occupation, thus when put to referendums, NATO membership was confirmed by an overwhelming majority.

[erik]

From a Lithuanian perspective, and I think I speak for many of us, we didn't need much encouragement from the US, EU, NATO or anyone else to join any western alliance. The Russians brought so much suffering over the centuries, so much oppression and pain. Countless people exiled to Siberia, sent off to labor camps and prisons to die in the cold. They tried to erase our history, language and overall our Baltic identities and replace it with their own people and customs.
Of course after the people managed to liberate themselves from the Russian grasp and their "union" they started looking westwards. Where else?
EU and NATO is far from perfect and it needs to be actively worked on by all the nations involved to improve it all, but at least they weren't the ones exiling our families off to a frozen wasteland to endure slavery and torture.

[Valyssi]

Russia: "Verbal agreements are legally binding"
Also Russia: "that nuclear disarmament deal in Ukraine, where we promised to uphold and recognise Ukrainian territorial sovereignty, as WRITTEN in the deal, is worth jack shit"

[derfuchs]

To be fair Eastern European countries wouldn’t have joined NATO is they didn’t feel threatened by Russia in the first place. And now we all know they were justified in their fear.
Also, Russia is not entitled to deciding what organisations Eastern European countries can or can’t join.

[peterdrlicka]

Slovak guy here. I am so glad that towards the end you mentioned the fact that we had referendums in the new Nato member states. We CHOSE to be members. Most of the people here wants to be part of west as it offers stability, economic growth, and respect of human rights. What does Russia has to offer? Absolute poverty, corruption and certain death if you cross the “wrong” people? Who would want to join that? They are a laughing stock of world, should they not have the natural resources they would be a third world country. The only thing why world respects them are the nuclear missiles. Should they not have them, the country would break apart long time ago, and china would be the first one to take a piece. That to me is most shocking - they run for help to their biggest enemy.

[JohnnieHougaardNielsen]

Finland is an excellent example for eagerness to join Nato. Until the Putin aggressive war against Ukraine, interest in membership was so low that it was not a topic. That changed dramatically, and now a majority is in favor of being part of this security pact. Of course, they also have historical bad memories with the Russian invasion during the 2nd world war.

[tobiwan]

Also: Eastward expansion was 18 years ago and NATO never violated the agreements to not move large numbers of soldiers to border countries, establish permanent basis or bas nuclear weapons there.
Russia on the other hand has nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, fought five wars against European countries in the last 20 years and has been openly threatening anyone east of Germany.
The official reasons for the invasion of Ukraine also did not actually make reference to this. Instead they refer to the unity of all Russian speaking people and protection of Russian minorities in other countries. This suggests that this is ideologically driven and not out of fears for there security.

Unlike the alleged NATO agreement to not expand eastward, which was apparently verbal at best, Russia's guarantee to never invade Ukraine is actually in writing. So there is no question who broke treaties and who did not.

[iattacku]

Russia: “ YOU TURNED THEM AGAINST ME “
NATO: “ you have done that yourself “

[MrMartinSchou]

The word "needlessly" does a lot of the heavy lifting. Russia having invaded its neighbours several times since the fall of the Soviet Union makes it fairly obvious that the countries seeking membership of NATO aren't doing so needlessly.

[FuZZbaLLbee]

“NATO would not expand needlessly eastward.” Given the current situation I still think this holds up. Russia makes sure that a country needs to be part of it to not be invaded

[project_X_design]

I'm from the Baltics and if there is anything that history has told me is that the Soviet regime was very unfriendly towards people of my culture. Not only did Soviets rule with an iron fist but they LITERALLY sent thousands of people to Siberia for SLAVERY where alot of them died of starvation. My grandmother was one of those people but she was lucky to have broken a leg on her way there and was then sent to Omsk hospital, where she met Russian friends who then helped her escape back to Latvia. If there is anything that history and my family have taught me is that the Russian government has always been very corrupt and bad people because of their military might over smaller countries like mine. The countries that joined NATO did so not because they were persuaded, but because of fear from what Russia could do to them if they didn't have some insurance of defence. I don't hate Russians but Vladimir Putin is a very bad person for invading Ukraine and causing a crises in EU. He is out of his mind for bombarding and killing innocent civilians who have nothing to do with politics. People who just want to live their lives in peace and prosperity are now running away from their home and friends because of a war that Putin started. And he has the audacity to say that these people are "nazis" while he himself is acting literally like Adolf Hitler. If anyone defends Putin they can go F themselves

[Fishpasta]

Absolutely... if by expansion he means former soviet countries applied to join and were accepted.
It's the fundemental difference between NATO and Putin. With NATO it's "Please can I join", with Putin it's "You're not allowed to leave".

[badluck]

Speaking of treaty obligations, Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal because Russia agreed to respect Ukraine's borders and sovereignty.

[PeterW-ski]

Being from Poland I can atest there was great support for Poland joining NATO among all political forces even post communists. If Russia wasn't that country which threatens in neighbours all the time we wouldn't probably care about NATO. But I think joining NATO was one of most important things that happened in Polish history after fall of communism. What Western world does not understand is that putting obsession is not about NATO but about actually recreating Soviet Union, That's his true goal.

[scorbiot]

It's quite telling that when many ex-soviet bloc countries got freedom to choose, they quickly turned against USSR/Russia. Russia could have rejected the legacy of USSR, but Russia embraced it instead.

[deividasnavickas]

I'm Lithuanian and can say, before even watching the full video, it's not the NATOs faults. It's Russia. If they weren't just aggressors that had occupied Eastern European lands ridiculous amounts of times and the last 200 years, also, Rusofication, Siberia and other shit. We would have not joined, but now we need protection, we want NATO, Russia is too much of a thread. So basically it is not nato is the people who want some protection from Russia.

[adlsfreund]

The two big takeaways for me here are:
1. There was never a formal, legally binding agreement. And there's no reason it couldn't have been formalized if they had indeed agreed to it. It's a simple enough idea to write down "NATO will not expand eastward". That shows that it really wasn't agreed upon.
2. Yeltsin in 1993 did not object to Poland's accession, further evidence that there was no agreement to non-expansion.
In conclusion, Putin and his apologists are, again, full of it.

[vincilo]

This is a catch22 situation: by attacking Ukraine, Putin justified the expansion of NATO

[thetowerfantasymusic]

Russia also promised Ukraine not to invade if they gave up their nuclear