In New Book Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Admits That NATO Provoked Ukraine War.

Reading Between The Lines, Jens Stoltenberg, The Former Secretary General of NATO De-Facto Admits That NATO Provoked The War In Ukraine.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO from 2014 to 2024, has just published a new memoir where he de facto admits that NATO provoked the proxy war in Ukraine.

For one, he notes that behind the scenes, Russian grievances were all centred around NATO expansion Eastwards, the 1999 Serbia bombing, the 2011 Libya bombing and the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine.

In the book, he recounts a conversation with Alexander Grushko, Russia’s NATO ambassador in 2014, noting that Grushko,“believed that NATO’s enlargement eastwards and support of Ukraine threatened Russia, and undermined the country’s cooperation with NATO.”

Stoltenberg added, “The conversation confirmed that Russia and NATO remained at opposite ends of the spectrum on the question of Ukraine”.

Recounting another 2014 conversation with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, Stoltenberg recounted that Lavrov said, “it was the coup against President Viktor Yanukovych that was illegal. A democratically elected president! You supported the coup leaders at Maidan Square in 2014 … What about NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, Secretary General Stoltenberg? An unlawful military action, a war crime, and then you accuse us of breaking international law? What gives you the right to do that? And since we’re speaking of international law – what about Libya in 2011? We trusted you, we supported the resolution of the Security Council. But you used and abused the resolution to kill the country’s head of state. How can we ever trust you again? How can you defend such an act?”.

Stoltenberg also recounted that the Western puppet Petro Poroshenko who became president of Ukraine after the 2014 U.S.-backed coup, strongly pushed for NATO membership of Ukraine, crossing Russia’s red line.

Recounting a 2015 meeting between himself and Poroshenko, Stolentenberg write, “Then, between a few bites of sausage and a sip of beer, Poroshenko asked: ‘When will we become a member of NATO?’” adding, “Poroshenko was keen to ensure that the resolution from the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, through which Ukraine had been promised NATO membership, would be upheld.”

When NATO officially invited Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO in 2008, U.S. ambassador to Russia, William Burns, warned that it “could potentially split the country (Ukraine) in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene”.

Writing about the summit to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, Stoltenberg notes, “Vladimir Putin took part in the summit, and violently protested at the door being kept open for Georgia and Ukraine”.

Stoltenberg even admitted that some NATO member states at the time thought, “granting Ukraine membership would provoke Moscow, leading to an increased risk of crisis and conflict in Europe.”

Despite this, he writes, “I personally was growing ever more sympathetic towards the Ukrainians’ intense desire to gain a foothold in the West through NATO and EU membership.”

Jens Stoltenberg recounts a 2015 meeting between himself and Henry Kissinger where Kissinger told him, “The West must understand that for Russia, Ukraine will never be just another foreign country. Russia’s own history begins in Kyiv. Some of the most important battles for Russia’s own freedom were fought on Ukrainian soil” adding that, “Kissinger was against Ukrainian NATO membership, and generally sceptical about NATO’s enlargement eastwards since the end of the Cold War. He was concerned that the Ukraine crisis was all too often presented as a choice between two mutually exclusive alternatives: whether Ukraine moved towards the East or the West. ‘If Ukraine is to survive and grow as a nation, the country cannot become the West’s outpost against the East, or the East’s outpost against the West. The country must become a bridge between East and West,’ he said.”

He went on to write, “‘The West’s demonising of Vladimir Putin is not a policy,’ he said. ‘It is an alibi for not having a policy. Take care not to isolate Russia. It is a weak country, compared with NATO.’”

Jens Stoltenberg adds, “It was a thought-provoking conversation. Kissinger was not alone among Western experts in emphasising the unique relationship between Ukraine and Russia; that Ukraine was a divided country that did not unequivocally belong to East or West.”

Stoltenberg recounts a 2016 meeting between himself and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, where he told her that, “NATO had prepared concrete plans for building up our military presence within the Baltic countries and Poland” adding that, “Germany was sceptical at first, believing it would kindle Russia’s fear of having NATO come too close, and thereby increase tensions across Europe.”

Despite this, he wrote that, “Merkel therefore agreed that Germany would lead one of the four battalions that I proposed should be approved for deployment at the summit”.

This is despite the fact that Stoltenberg admits, “NATO was the very symbol of what Moscow perceived as aggressive and threatening during the Cold War – a tool of American imperialism. And, after the Soviet Union was dissolved, a military instrument for suppressing Russia within Europe and maintaining a US-led world order. Viewed from Moscow, NATO was worse than the sum of its member nations.”

Recounting a 2021 meeting with Sergey Lavrov, Stolentenberg writes that he reiterated Russia’s concerns over NATO expansion, writing: “On issue after issue he rattled off his deep dissatisfaction with NATO: the bombing of Serbia in 1999, the various waves of NATO enlargement and our ostensible lack of response to the Russian proposal of buffer zones that would limit military activity along the border between Russia and NATO.”

Writing about negotiations with Russia before the Ukraine war, Stoltenberg notes, “Putin had submitted proposals addressed to the United States and to NATO regarding a new security treaty. The treaty had three main elements. The first was that no new countries would be permitted to join the alliance. The second was that no country that had become a member of NATO after the dissolution of the Soviet Union would be permitted to have military forces or equipment from other NATO nations on its territory. The third element was that NATO would not deploy new offensive weapons in Russia’s immediate vicinity, and that existing, long-range weapons would be withdrawn”, adding, “This wasn’t just about Ukraine. In reality, Russia was demanding that the United States and NATO enter into a legally binding treaty that would change the security order that had ensured peace in Europe for many decades.”

For context, in 1997, the U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan warned that “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era” adding that it would, “be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

Kennan noted that this opinion, “is not only mine alone but is shared by a number of others with extensive and in most instances more recent experience in Russian matters.”

Despite this, Stoltenberg noted that NATO refused to take NATO membership for Ukraine off the table or draw down NATO military equipment for NATO members encirciling Russia, writing: “The demand that NATO’s doors be closed to new member nations broke with the principle that every country shall be able to choose its own security arrangements … The second demand, that we must withdraw all our forces from the countries in the East, would mean that we would no longer be able to defend our newer members in the same way as the older ones – we would end up with two tiers of NATO member nations. The first two demands were therefore impossible to agree to.”

Stoltenberg then wrote, “If NATO refused to accept Moscow’s terms, there would be war.”

Recounting a security conference in Munich shortly before the Ukraine war, Stoltenberg recounts saying that Moscow, “wants to limit NATO’s right to collective defence … Moscow also wants to deny sovereign countries the right to choose their own path. And their own security arrangements,” de facto admitting that Russia’s concerns were around NATO expansion and NATO membership for Ukraine.

Provoking Russia even more, Stoltenberg notes that before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “we stepped up military aid to Ukraine and deployed more troops in our Eastern member nations, on land, at sea and in the air.”

Recalling his discussions around Finland joining NATO, Stoltenberg writes:

What changed the situation at a single stroke, however, was the demand Vladimir Putin made in December, that no new countries be permitted to join the alliance. This threat diplomacy had a tremendous effect within Finland. Part of Finland’s security policy was ‘the NATO option’ – the fact that NATO membership existed as an alternative, and that the country could apply to join the alliance. Putin, however, wanted to remove this option. When Russia began trying to close the door to NATO for good, it became important for Finland to step inside.

The assessment in Helsinki was that the most important thing to Putin were his demands to establish a new security order in Europe.

Stoltenberg then bluntly admitted, “In Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, the Russians had begun military operations in order to ward off NATO membership.”

Writing about Finland’s eventual NATO membership, Stoltenberg admitted, “Vladimir Putin wanted less NATO close to Russia’s borders, but ended up with more. It was a strategic defeat for Moscow.”

Describing conversations around Ukraine joining NATO in 2023, Stoltenberg de facto admits the war was over NATO expansion, writing, “The real reason for the war was not about who should control the Donbas. And nor was it about Crimea. It was about Ukraine’s place in Europe. The in-between position Ukraine had occupied since 2008, when the country was promised NATO membership but without being given any timeframe for when this might be granted, was untenable in the long term. Either Ukraine would be dragged mercilessly into Russia’s sphere of influence, or the country would have to be incorporated among Europe’s democratic nations. The question of NATO membership had to be put back on the table.”

While Stoltenberg is clearly a supporter of the Ukraine war and the role he played in it, many of his admissions show clearly that NATO expansion eastward provoked the war in Ukraine.

---

Note to readers: The Dissident is a reader-supported outlet. If you liked this article, consider becoming a paid subscriber.