In my 5 years in the US government (2009-2014), NATO expansion to Ukraine was a non-issue in U.S.-Russia relations & U.S.-Ukraine relations. 1/ THREAD
In 2010, Medvedev even attended the NATO summit in Lisbon. He said, "The meeting… was historic in terms of its spirit and atmosphere." (I was there; he was thrilled to be at the meeting.) 2/
While attending Obama, Biden, Clinton, Lavrov, Donilon, etc. meetings with Putin/Medvedev/Lavrov, and listening in on nearly every phone call between Obama and Russians for 5 years, I cannot recall a serious contentious exchange about NATO expansion. 3/
Between 2009-2014, the Ukrainian government also was not pressing for NATO membership. Yushchenko was not pushing. Yanukovich was firmly against. Societal support was weak & focused more on joining the EU. 4/
Putin revived the NATO expansion threat after annexing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine in 2014. I understand why. If I worked for him, I'd recommend pushing the same propaganda line. But for everyone else, let's be clear about the timeline & sequence of events. 5/
Since the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, support not surprisingly for joining NATO has risen among Ukrainians. But the NATO alliance has remained lukewarm to the idea. A MAP has not even been started. 6/
Putin wants you to believe otherwise. Some of his crazy propaganda channels are even warning of a Ukrainian attack on Russia! But let's restate the obvious; Putin has completely invented these threats, which he of course does not believe. 7/ END THREAD
Bonus thread add -- if you want to read the details of this history, check out FROM COLD WAR TO HOT PEACE. It's all in there. amazon.com/Cold-War-Hot-P…
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