Putin Claims that NATO ‘Cheated’ Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that NATO has lied to Moscow back in the 1990s, when it pledged not to expand an inch eastwards, a statement that turned out to be a blatant lie, Russian media report.

Putin, speaking at his annual end-of-year press conference, pointed that Russia was also cheated by the West, which verbally agreed following the fall of the USSR not to admit former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries into NATO, but broke those agreements.

Underscoring that, on top of its expanding, NATO is even planning to deploy offensive weapons in countries that are not even officially part of NATO, such as Ukraine, the Russian President reiterated how important is for the US-led alliance to immediately come up with guarantees for Russia instead of the empty talk Moscow listens to for decades.

He said that instead of treating Russia as an ally and trying to strengthen it, NATO countries have been attempting for years to undermine and break it up.

According to Putin, the constant pressure of the Western countries on Russia can only be explained by the fact that they still think it is too big even following the collapse of the USSR, especially since the European countries themselves turned into smaller states.

Putin’s press conference comes in light of Moscow’s demands for security guarantees, after which it has pitched its proposals in the form of two draft treaties on European security to the United States and NATO.

If all parties agree to sign the treaties, it would limit the troop movements near the Russian border and would prevent deploying missiles near the frontier.

In the meantime, NATO has offered to hold a NATO-Russia Council on security guarantees, which EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell considers to be an important step.

Borrell underlined that NATO has the key role in guaranteeing peace in Europe, but that the EU will engage with both the US and the alliance to ensure its interests are represented in dealings with Russia on European security.