Jack BUCKBY

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Keith Kellogg, US envoy to Ukraine under President Trump, stated this week that Vladimir Putin’s complaint about NATO’s eastward expansion is “fair,” a comment that could signal a significant shift in the US stance.

-This potentially validates Russia’s long-held grievance, which it uses to justify the Ukraine war, despite Western counterarguments that no formal treaty barred NATO’s growth beyond Germany.

-Putin currently demands a written commitment to halt further NATO enlargement as a condition for peace. Kellogg also noted that Ukraine joining NATO is “not on the table” for the US and several other members.

Why Ukraine Is Never Going to Join NATO

Keith Kellogg, the U.S. envoy to Ukraine, told ABC News this week that the administration believes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s complaint about the eastward expansion of NATO is “fair.”

The comment could become a significant turning point in the conflict, following years of NATO countries and U.S. presidents rejecting claims by Moscow that NATO violated a pledge not to expand the bloc eastward.

“We’ve said that to us, Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table, and we’re not the only country that says that – you know I could probably give you four other countries in NATO and it takes 32 of the 32 to allow you to come in to NATO,” Kellogg told ABC on Thursday. “That’s one of the issues that Russia will bring up.”

Why It’s Contentious

President Putin frequently cites NATO’s eastward expansion as both a long-standing grievance and a justification for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He argues that Western leaders broke promises made in the late 20th century not to expand the alliance toward Russia’s borders.

In recent days, Reuters reported that President Putin’s conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a “demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia.” The reporting has been used by some as proof that Putin’s initial claims were inaccurate, and that the pledges he refers to were not as ironclad as he portrayed them to be.

Notably, in the months before the invasion of Ukraine began, NATO reportedly rejected a treaty sought by Putin to guarantee the bloc would not expand further towards Russian borders, and that it would remove NATO weapons and troops stationed on Russia’s doorstep. NATO did not oblige.

So while Putin may have no legal basis for his complaint, might it be possible he has a moral one?

NATO Did, In Fact, Expand

While NATO has expanded over the years, Putin’s claim that it is cause to retaliate is heavily disputed by Western analysts and politicians, with many claiming that it is merely an excuse to justify Putin’s expansionist intentions.

Nonetheless, there are many examples of NATO expanding eastwards over the last quarter of a century, starting with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joining the alliance in 1999. Notably, these were the first members of NATO that were also previously members of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European countries.

Four years later in 2008, NATO declared at the Bucharest Summit that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members,” a pledge that proved to be a key turning point in relations between Putin and the West.

Did the West Make Any Pledge At All?

While no formal written agreement exists between Russia and NATO officials or member states, there are recorded instances of verbal assurances being made to Soviet leaders which have been cited on multiple occasions by the Russian president.

In February 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would move “not one inch eastward” if the Soviets accepted German reunification with NATO. The assurances were echoed by other major Western leaders at the time, including British Prime Minister John Major and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

However, Gorbachev himself later clarified that while Baker did tell him that NATO wouldn’t move an inch eastward, it was said in the context of German reunification.

The comments, therefore, appear to have meant that NATO troops would not be stationed in East Germany after reunification, and not that NATO would rule out expanding to the likes of Poland, the Baltics, or even Ukraine.

Original article: nationalsecurityjournal.org