The Intelligence Review | vol. 1 | iss. 1 |

the Baltics’ Western orientation (Drobhizeva 1993:2833). The expansion of NATO is much
more publicly scrutinized by Russian leadership than the fact that the Baltic States became
members. NATO has consistently been denounced by the Russian leadership, as they perceive
its expansion to be a threat to their country’s national interests and security (De Luce 2016).
A 1987 verbal agreement between Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and United States (US)
President George H.W. Bush stating that NATO would not expand into central Europe or
place military infrastructure close to Russia’s eastern border has been frequently used by the
Russian leadership to justify their disapproval. However, the successive leaders of either party
were not bound to uphold this agreement (Bender 2016). NATO has since expanded into
Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic States.
Ukraine had a much different transition toward independence after the Soviet Union
dissolved. Russians believe that they and the Ukrainians are essentially the same narod, meaning
they are bearers of the same national culture (Solchanyk 1998:539). There are substantial
numbers of ethnic Russians that were integrated into eastern Ukraine, likely providing the
basis for the pro-Russian separatist movements that have made the country unstable since
2014. The government was heavily influenced by Russian political figures and oligarchs, and
was unable to transition toward a Western-style democracy due to Russian opposition
(McMahon 2014). However, the Orange Revolution in 2004 was the first prominent pro-
Western uprising against the pro-Russian government that hinted toward a change. In 2008,
NATO declared that an independent and stable Ukraine was the key to Euro-Atlantic security
and promised the country future membership. In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian
politician, was elected as the Ukrainian president and terminated the Euro-Atlantic security
talks. He was ousted by the parliament and fled to Russia in 2014, sparking a number of pro-
Russian separatist movements against the Ukrainian government. The events that followed led
to an armed conflict between Ukrainian nationalists and the separatists, with accusations of
clandestine Russian and Western support for the two factions.
Implications
The territory of Crimea, originally given to Ukraine by then Russian President Nikita Khrushchev
in 1954, was formally annexed by Russia in March of 2014, although the act was considered
illegal by the United Nations. This led to the notion that Russia’s perceived aggression was
becoming more of a threat to some of the countries in Eastern Europe, namely the Baltic
States and Poland. They essentially called on NATO to provide an increased military presence
in the region to deter the threat that they perceived as coming from Russia. In early 2016, the
US Department of Defense made plans to request $3.4 billion in 2017 to reinforce its military
presence closer to Russia’s western border (Anon. 2016b). Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
stated that NATO welcomed these plans because the eastern part of the alliance would be
more secure with an increased troop presence (Bender 2016). However, Russian Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that these moves would create grounds to
implement military plans against Russia and practical steps to push Western military
infrastructure closer to Russia’s border. She also noted that these initiatives were “aggressive”
and NATO was using a non-existent threat from Russia as a pretext. Moscow has consistently
let it be known that any such moves by NATO will be reciprocated (Anon. 2016a).
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