Back in the 90s, Secretary of State James Baker’s assurance to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “not one inch eastward”.

Mikhail Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George H.W. Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.

Since then: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia and Montenegro have all joined NATO, and are all east of Germany.

This isn’t propaganda, these are verifiable facts. Now, I don’t like Russia at all but that doesn’t mean the west hasn’t done some shady stuff in the past. I’m perfectly fine with all of those countries joining NAT, but I won’t pretend that we in the west didn’t lie to get us here.