>Prominent members of Soviet leadership have explicitly denied that such subject ever came up. Nor did Russian representatives ever mention anything like it when most of Eastern Europe joined NATO in late 1990s and early 2000s.
>This conspiracy theory emerged in late 2000s
Some of us are actually old enough to have been adults when the Soviet Union fell and to have lived through that period of time. We were around to witness Baker promise that NATO would not expand "one inch Eastward" of Germany.
>You are not offering some nuanced alternative view, but reurgitating known proven lies
This is a comically bad effort to gaslight people who lived through the period and actually witnessed exactly what transpired. Unfortunately many younger people who weren't around to witness what actually happened, and many people who are uninformed and/or misinformed are easily misled by gaslighting like this.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...