This is one of Russia's main demands in the Ukrainian crisis: the organization of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) must stop expanding east and permanently close the door to kyiv.
This week, the Kremlin received an end of inadmissibility at this request in a letter submitted by the American ambassador to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
If the current confrontation between Russia and Westerners is based on many grievances, the account of Western betrayal has occupied a place of choice in the rhetoric of Moscow for several decades.
In a very offensive speech of 2007 at the Munich security conference, Vladimir Putin had notably accused the West of breaking his "guarantees" by expanding NATO to the doors of Russia - the Baltic countries in particular joinedThe alliance in 2004. "And what happened to the insurances given by our Western partners after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact [the Soviet counterpart of NATO]? Where are these declarations today? No one isRemember, "said Kremlin chief.
In fact, NATO has not stopped looking at the east since the fall of the USSR, going from 16 to 30 countries by integrating in the last two decades mainly from the members of the former Soviet block.However, Westerners have betrayed any promise?
The origin of the myth of betrayal
To understand the basis of Russian resentment, it is necessary to go back to February 9, 1990 and to an interview between the American Secretary of State, James Baker, and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.The discussion relates to the status of reunified Germany.It is then agreed that NATO will not extend to the DRA territory, a repeated promise in a speech by the secretary general of NATO on May 17 in Brussels.
Finally, an agreement will be reached in September with Russia to allow NATO troops to park beyond the "iron curtain".But this agreement only concerns reunified Germany.An east enlargement remains inconceivable in the context of the time anyway.
"The USSR still exists and the countries of Eastern Europe are still part of Soviet structures, in particular the Warsaw Pact which will not be officially dissolved until July 1991", specifies Amima Zima, doctor of political science attached toThucydide center (Pantheon-Assas)."We cannot speak of betrayal, because a chain of difficult events is preparing that will bring Europe into a new security configuration."
In short, when Westerners offer the "guarantees" of which Vladimir Putin speaks, no one can predict the collapse of the USSR and the upcoming historical upheavals.
>> À voir : Chute de l'URSS, 30 ans après : les Ukrainiens entre volonté d'indépendance et nostalgie
"In addition, these promises were made orally and have never been recorded in a treaty," recalls Olivier Kempf, associate researcher with the Foundation for Strategic Research."The turn of enlargement will come much later, in 1995, and at the request of the countries of Eastern Europe."
That year, NATO published a study on its enlargement before starting, two years later, membership talks with Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, which will become members in 1999. The reception ofThese new members has long aroused debate within NATO, thus breaking the Russian myth of a betrayal orchestrated by Westerners."Even within the American administration, some thought that NATO did not have to widen because it could make it less effective, dilute its skills and become a financial burden," said Amima.
And now Ukraine?
For many years, the issue of NATO enlargement has been supplying tensions between the United States and its allies on one side and Russia on the other.In August 2008, the Atlanticist ambitions of Georgia, which so far has not succeeded, partly motivated the lightning war waged by Moscow.As for the Alliance anti -missile shield, inaugurated in 2016 in Romania, a member of NATO since 2004, it is considered a threat by the Kremlin.
Faced with Russian concerns, Western governments continue to hammer the defensive vocation of the politico-military alliance created in 1949.
>> À lire : Pourquoi la Russie s'estime menacée par l’Otan
"The Russians find it difficult to accept the enlargement of NATO but they forget that they signed a document called the NATO-Russia founding act in 1997 through which they become partners and undertake to guarantee a spacepeace and security in the Euro-Atlantic zone as well as the territorial integrity of all states, "points out Amélie Zima.
Today, Moscow reactivates his betrayal rhetoric in the Ukrainian crisis by making kyiv's membership in NATO a new red line not to be crossed.
Ukraine currently has the status of "partner countries", which means that it could one day be authorized to join the Alliance.In reality, kyiv still has a long way to go before being able to claim it.
"One of the major rules of the Alliance is that the countries welcomed must have solved all their border problems so as not to integrate a crisis factor within the organization. Suffice to say that with the conflict in Crimea, we seeUkraine badly join NATO, "says Olivier Kempf.
"Ukraine is not in the pre-added scheme because there are problems of army, state, corruption reforms. Even the Americans are not favorable," said Amima.
On the other hand, NATO member countries militarily support Ukraine on the basis of bilateral agreements.
Joe Biden repeated on Thursday to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that the United States and its allies would respond "resolutely" in the event of a Russian invasion.But NATO military intervention in Ukraine is excluded.
"NATO can support Ukraine but within the limits of the texts and will therefore not be able to initiate article 5 [which provides for an intervention in the event of an attack on a member country] for the benefit of Ukraine," saidOlivier Kempf."Everyone knows it. Putin knows it. And that's why he plays" in his showdown with the United States.
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