Moscow has viewed NATO's post–Cold War expansion into Central and Eastern Europe with great concern. Many current and former Russian leaders believe the alliance's inroads into the former Soviet sphere are a betrayal of alleged guarantees to not expand eastward after Germany’s reunification in 1990
Most Western leaders knew the risks of enlargement. “If there is a long-term danger in keeping NATO as it is, there is immediate danger in changing it too rapidly. Swift expansion of NATO eastward could make a neo-imperialist Russia a self-fulfilling prophecy,” wrote Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Washington Post in January 1994.
NATO's Bucharest Summit in the spring of 2008 deepened suspicions. While the alliance delayed Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia, it vowed to support their full membership down the road, despite repeated warnings from Moscow of political and military consequences. Russia's invasion of Georgia that summer was a clear signal of Moscow's intentions to protect what it sees as its sphere of influence, experts say.
In an address honoring the annexation of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin expounded Russia's deep-seated grievances with the alliance. “They have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with NATO's expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders,” he told Russia's parliament. “In short, we have every reason to assume that the infamous [Western] policy of containment, led in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, continues today.”
In congressional testimony
