Putin: Russia insists on fulfillment of NATO's promise not to expand eastward

(Patria) - Moscow emphasizes the importance of respecting publicly given commitments from the 1990s that the North Atlantic Alliance would not expand eastward, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with India Today television.

„We are not asking for anything unusual or unexpected, a bolt from the blue. We simply demand that the promises already made to us be fulfilled. They were not invented yesterday; they were given to Russia back in the 1990s. No NATO expansion eastward - that was said publicly,“ Putin said, as reported by TASS.

Putin noted that since then, several waves of NATO expansion have occurred, culminating in efforts to include Ukraine in the alliance.

„That does not suit us at all and poses a serious threat to Russia. Let us recall that NATO is a military-political alliance, and Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an armed conflict with one NATO member is considered a conflict with all, has not been repealed. That is a threat to us. No one takes our security concerns seriously,“ he explained.

Putin referred to Ukraine's independence, recalling that the first ratified document was the Declaration of State Sovereignty and Independence of Ukraine.

„It forms the foundation of Ukraine's sovereignty and modern statehood. It clearly states that Ukraine is a neutral state,“ Putin concluded.