USA promised Russia that there will be no NATO expansion to the East

Summary

The USA promised Russia that there will be no NATO expansion to the East.

US Secretary of State, James Baker, had agreed with Gorbachev in 1990 in his negotiations on German reunification that there would be no expansion of NATO beyond the then eastern borders of the GDR.

“Baker noted this oral promise in a note: “End result: Unified Ger. anchored* in a changed (polit.) NATO -* whose jurisdiction. would not move* eastwards!”

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation that NATO had promised that the Alliance would not expand to the East and that NATO is de facto aggressive.

NATO allies take decisions by consensus and these are recorded. There is no record of any such decision having been taken by NATO or the US. Personal assurances from individual leaders cannot replace Alliance consensus' and do not constitute formal NATO agreements. Moreover, at the time of the alleged promise, the Warsaw Pact still existed. Its members did not agree on its dissolution until 1991. This was confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev himself in an interview with Russia Beyond the Headlines:

"The topic of 'NATO expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn't bring it up either".

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Reported in: Issue 155
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 20/06/2019
Language/target audience: German
Country: Russia, US
Keywords: security threat, EU/NATO enlargement, Anti-Russian, Cold War, NATO
Outlet: Sputnik Deutschland

There is no evidence of Russian involvement in the MH17 crash

There is still no evidence of Russian involvement in the MH17 disaster; just rumours.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has rejected the Joint Investigation Team’s allegations that Russians were involved in the Malaysian Airlines Boeing MH17 crash in 2014. As in previous Joint Investigation Team press conferences, not a single piece of concrete evidence has been presented to substantiate such unlawful statements. The Joint Investigation Team is obviously confining itself to arguments that are not entirely reasonable.

No information was available on the involvement of the Russian citizens mentioned in the 2014 Donbas air crash.

June 20, 2019

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about the downing of MH17 that denies Russia's responsibility.

Recently, the Joint Investigation Team announced that it will issue international arrest warrants for three Russian military and intelligence officers – Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy, Oleg Pulatov – and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko, commander of the military combat unit in Donetsk. They will be prosecuted for their involvement in the murder of the 298 passengers aboard MH17, which was brought down by a Russian Buk missile. The trial will begin next March.

MH17: Political games instead of a real investigation

The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team presents the same old accusations. The campaign is on-going, Russia and the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic were found guilty by mainstream media and Western diplomats a long time ago and the JIT is currently attempting to construct the narrative surrounding the guilty, rather than prove it. Also, is it really a coincidence that the JIT’s briefing took place on the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Direct Line?

June 20, 2019

Disproof

One of the multiple disinformation narratives on the downing of the MH17 denying Russia's responsibility.

The Dutch-led criminal investigation by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has been ongoing since 2014. On 28 September 2016, the JIT announced that flight MH17 was shot down by a missile from the 9M38 series, which was launched by a BUK TELAR missile system. The system was transported from the Russian Federation to an agricultural field near the town of Pervomaiskyi in Eastern Ukraine, from where the missile was launched. After firing, the system - with 1 missing missile - went back to the Russian Federation. On the 24th of May 2018, the JIT announced its conclusion the BUK TELAR used to shoot down MH17 came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit of the Russian armed forces from Kursk in the Russian Federation.

European economy loses tens and hundreds of billion dollars due to sanctions

The whole Eurasia is trying to get rid of US dictate.

Washington solves all its geopolitical claims both to Russia and Iran solely at the expense of European allies and partners. The losses suffered by the European economy due to sanctions since the end of 2014 are already over tens and hundreds of billion dollars.

June 20, 2019

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Western sanctions on Russia and US presence in Europe. You can see other examples here, here, and here.

Since March 2014, the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures against Russia. The measures were adopted in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and the deliberate destabilisation of Ukraine.