‘Russian victimisation by the West’ are a fairy tale
■ Writing about “broken western promises to Gorbachev that Nato would not expand ‘one inch’ eastwards” (Letters, Irish Independent, April 6), Paul Mullan joins the choir retelling the Russian fairy tale of its alleged victimisation by the West. In that tale, a promise that was given to the head of a state that no longer exists (USSR) is always mentioned, while what is never mentioned is Boris Yeltsin’s (president of the state that still exists) agreement to enlarge Nato eastwards, made in summer 1993 in Warsaw and confirmed when Queen Elizabeth visited Moscow and Yeltsin signed the Start II treaty.
Regardless of that, people of central and eastern Europe should decide what political structure they want to be part of (and that they want to be part of Nato is in no small part related to the fact even before Nato’s enlargement eastwards,
Russia had more tanks and rocket-launching systems in Kaliningrad than Britain, Germany and France combined).
What would Mr Mullan say if the West promised Gorbachev never to reunite the island of Ireland? The whole “broken western promises” lament reminds me of Britain’s 1907 promise to make the Turkish Straits accessible to Russia.
To secure Austria’s agreement, Russian foreign minister Alexander Izvolsky proposed Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. When Austria did precisely that but Britain changed its mind, Russia was left with nothing and started to shed crocodile tears over broken western promises and the fate of south Slavic “little brothers”.
Grzegorz Kolodziej