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On Feb. 9, 1990, Baker said: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East.” On the next day, then German Chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]] said: “We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity.”<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2022/01/28/the-tangled-tale-of-nato-expansion-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-crisis/</ref>  Gorbachev’s mistake was not to get it in writing as a legally-binding agreement.<ref>For years it was believed there was no written record of the Baker-Gorbachev exchange at all, until the National Security Archive at George Washington University in December 2017 published a series of memos and cables about these assurances against NATO expansion eastward.</ref>

On Feb. 9, 1990, Baker said: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East.” On the next day, then German Chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]] said: “We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity.”<ref>https://consortiumnews.com/2022/01/28/the-tangled-tale-of-nato-expansion-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-crisis/</ref>  Gorbachev’s mistake was not to get it in writing as a legally-binding agreement.<ref>For years it was believed there was no written record of the Baker-Gorbachev exchange at all, until the National Security Archive at George Washington University in December 2017 published a series of memos and cables about these assurances against NATO expansion eastward.</ref>

[[File:Mamayev Hill.PNG|right|300px|thumb|Russians gather at Mamayev Hill during [[Operation Denazification]].<ref>[https://youtu.be/vro-pS4cQ2g The Story Behind Europe's Tallest Statue: The Motherland Calls | National Geographic], Jun 22, 2018.</ref>]]

[[File:Mamayev Hill.PNG|right|300px|thumb|Russians gather at Mamayev Hill at the opening of [[Operation Denazification]].<ref>[https://youtu.be/vro-pS4cQ2g The Story Behind Europe's Tallest Statue: The Motherland Calls | National Geographic], Jun 22, 2018.</ref>]]

{{quotebox-float|“U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous ‘not one inch eastward’ assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by [[Western]] leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents …

{{quotebox-float|“U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous ‘not one inch eastward’ assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by [[Western]] leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents …