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Russian President Vladimir Putin used a ceremonial address at the Kremlin this week to revive one of Moscow’s oldest and most contested claims: that the West betrayed the post–Cold War settlement and that NATO’s expansion beyond its early-1990s footprint laid the groundwork for the war in Ukraine.
Speaking before newly accredited foreign ambassadors, Putin stopped short of explicitly demanding that NATO roll back to its 1991 borders. But he did not need to. His language was calibrated to do something more politically useful—reassert Russia’s version of history while signaling that any future negotiations must. . .
