Myth: NATO is expanding eastward, and Ukraine’s NATO membership provoked Russia.
Fact: Ukraine could not join NATO between 2014 and 2022 because it had an ongoing war on its territory, making it ineligible for NATO membership under the alliance’s own rules. NATO requires prospective members to have stable borders and no active conflicts, which Ukraine clearly did not have due to Russia’s hybrid invasion and occupation of Crimea and parts of Donbas.
As for the claim of a NATO “promise” not to expand eastward, there is no credible evidence of such an agreement. In fact, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev himself stated in interviews that no such binding agreement was made. NATO’s expansion was a choice of sovereign nations seeking to join, and every new member was accepted based on their own decision to join the alliance, not on any promises made to Russia. The idea of NATO “encroaching” is a conspiracy theory, and the reality is that NATO is a defensive alliance that has only grown as countries sought security in the face of external threats.