Comments by "turquoisestones" (@turquisestones) on "FRONTLINE PBS | Official" channel.

NATO DID promise Russia not to expand eastwards. It was not done in a written form, but it was said several times by high NATO's officials in the final years of the USSR. I remember that very well. And I also remember what kind of people we Russians were at that time - we fully trusted the West and took its every word at its face value - be it a political statement by any leader or any catchy phrase in a tv commercial. When Gorbachev allowed the freedom of speech in the USSR and it was already okay to speak openly about the failure of the communist model without the fear of being thrown behind the bars, and when the Iron curtain had gone down, we were all looking up to the West in every possible way. It was still a good ten years before our first great disappointment in the West - the bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999 without the UN security counsel approval - we were just like a blank sheet of paper ready for you to write anything on it. And instead of writing something decent the West just peed on it.
4