That's not what I said.
"Whether the west cleverly tricked Soviet leadership by implying this without actually promising, and then simply turned around and ignored all that, or whether there was in fact an agreement, "
Neither of those is true.
Remember that Russians didn't agree on what "the west" was supposed to have promised. Gorbachev didn't even agree with himself. Claiming that things said by a few politicians & officials of two NATO countries during discussions of the possible future status of the DDR within a united Germany, vis-a-vis the Warsaw Pact & the USSR, were solid commitments to refusing to allow former members of the former Warsaw Pact (after that had ceased to exist) & former republics of the former USSR (after that had dissolved itself) to join NATO, however much they wanted to, doesn't make sense to me. Nobody was expecting the USSR to fall apart. You may not remember, but after it did, there were serious suggestions (including from within Russia) that Russia might join NATO. How can Russians talk about joining NATO, then complain that NATO expansion is a breach of a promise to Russia?
Context, context, context. Russian claims that they were lied to are dishonest. There was no NATO agreement not to expand. A handful of officials from two countries can't make policy for the whole alliance. Do Russians really think there's some monolithic thing called "the west" that moves in unison, & that anything any member of any western government or senior official says binds every western country? That's so obviously wrong that I'm astonished that you seem to agree with it.
It all boils down to this: Russia made a solemn agreement to not only recognise, but to protect, Ukraine's independence & territorial integrity. Russia broke that agreement, blatantly & deliberately. The western signatories, to their shame, didn't act to protect Ukraine in 2014, but tried to get an agreement limiting the damage. A series of agreements was made at Minsk & widely broken, especially by the Donbas separatists, who launched a series of successful attacks when there was supposed to be a ceasefire. Complaining that they were broken by one side, & one side only, & that side was Ukraine & the west, is silly. There are elements of them (special status for Donetsk & Luhansk) that could be salvaged, but given the February 2022 invasion, they cannot be considered to have any continuing meaning. Putin wiped them out. Everything has to start again.
"Whether the west cleverly tricked Soviet leadership by implying this without actually promising, and then simply turned around and ignored all that, or whether there was in fact an agreement, "
Neither of those is true.
Remember that Russians didn't agree on what "the west" was supposed to have promised. Gorbachev didn't even agree with himself. Claiming that things said by a few politicians & officials of two NATO countries during discussions of the possible future status of the DDR within a united Germany, vis-a-vis the Warsaw Pact & the USSR, were solid commitments to refusing to allow former members of the former Warsaw Pact (after that had ceased to exist) & former republics of the former USSR (after that had dissolved itself) to join NATO, however much they wanted to, doesn't make sense to me. Nobody was expecting the USSR to fall apart. You may not remember, but after it did, there were serious suggestions (including from within Russia) that Russia might join NATO. How can Russians talk about joining NATO, then complain that NATO expansion is a breach of a promise to Russia?
Context, context, context. Russian claims that they were lied to are dishonest. There was no NATO agreement not to expand. A handful of officials from two countries can't make policy for the whole alliance. Do Russians really think there's some monolithic thing called "the west" that moves in unison, & that anything any member of any western government or senior official says binds every western country? That's so obviously wrong that I'm astonished that you seem to agree with it.
It all boils down to this: Russia made a solemn agreement to not only recognise, but to protect, Ukraine's independence & territorial integrity. Russia broke that agreement, blatantly & deliberately. The western signatories, to their shame, didn't act to protect Ukraine in 2014, but tried to get an agreement limiting the damage. A series of agreements was made at Minsk & widely broken, especially by the Donbas separatists, who launched a series of successful attacks when there was supposed to be a ceasefire. Complaining that they were broken by one side, & one side only, & that side was Ukraine & the west, is silly. There are elements of them (special status for Donetsk & Luhansk) that could be salvaged, but given the February 2022 invasion, they cannot be considered to have any continuing meaning. Putin wiped them out. Everything has to start again.