Comment by runjake

Their argument is that NATO had agreed not to pursue membership with Ukraine, and broke that agreement. It is one point in a strategy of encirclement against them that hardly relented when the USSR fell.

But there was no formal or binding statement to that effect, only verbal statements during negotiations over East Germany in the 90s. Gorbachev corroborates this.

So you might see this as a bait and switch, depending on point of view. Given larger patterns in US/NATO, I do buy the encirclement argument.

And before someone makes childish allegations of me being a nefarious state actor propagandist, I don't support Putin or Russia. Ridiculous that I have to add this but no one seems capable of dispassionate discourse anymore.

Dialectical Materialism is a powerful explanatory and predictive framework that makes me rarely surprised by international developments. One needs not be a Marxist to use it. I am not one of those either, but I do have an anti-imperialist bias.