There was never a promise.
>Beset by chaos at home, an increasingly beleaguered Yeltsin turned to historical revisionism. He began to interpret the Two Plus Four Treaty as a ban on NATO expansion east of Germany, on the basis that it only permitted alliance activities on East German territory. He (and later Putin) claimed that the failure to mention Eastern Europe, together with the stipulated restrictions in relation to former GDR terrain, meant an implicit Western rejection of eastward enlargement.
Also later
> At preliminary bilateral talks in Helsinki in March 1997, Clinton refused to respond to Yeltsin’s call for binding restrictions on the establishment of NATO security infrastructure in new member states.
ha ha
"Kissinger confirms US verbal promise to Gorbachev not to expand NATO eastward"
"ha ha" indeed.
"There was never a promise"
Here's a hint: Only one of these two promises would even be relevant.
The promise of not expanding NATO never existed, BUT EVEN IF IT DID then Russia should be invading the US, not Ukraine. There is no justification to invade Ukraine as a defense against NATO, as even if you believe NATO controls Ukraine (it doesn't), taking that land merely increases the size of Russia's border with NATO.
But you know all this.
I am countering the pro-Washington, pro-war talking point that USA-RF diplomacy isn't viable because Russia violated Budapest. Well, so did USA, before the Crimea crisis. Find a better excuse to undermine diplomacy and justify bloodshed.
But Russia is the one launching a genocidal campaign, leveling cities, and posturing to intentionally cause a nuclear disaster at the largest nuclear plant in Europe. I don't think anyone should engage with them diplomatically until their government is completely reformed. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and wounded. Civilian targets are hit on a daily basis. They have lost the right to diplomacy. Any further tolerance of this country will lead to more instances of what we're experiencing now. Run the war to its conclusion when the government inevitably collapses.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35843312 (May 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30593145 (March 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128649 (Jan 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29629671 (Dec 2021)
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By the way, how many people died in the Russian invasion of Crimea and resulting occupation? Surely it was very bloody (like the current war) because Crimeans didn't want it, right?