On May 24, 2023, the Facebook page “Haylee Barajas” published a Russian-language video about the relations between Russia and Georgia, which states that Putin and Lavrov have revealed the shocking truth. The video talks about the reunification of Germany, arguing that the Soviet Union officially signed the termination of Germany’s occupied status while the US did not, and that is why the US occupation forces remain in Germany to this day. The video also states that in exchange for German reunification, there was an agreement that NATO would not expand eastward, which was later violated by the North Atlantic Alliance. An identical video was published on May 23 on the YouTube channel INFORMAцIONНЫЙ СЛИВ.
The claims that the US did not cease the occupation of Germany and that NATO broke the promise given to the Soviet Union about not expanding eastwards are false. The US, along with the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain, signed the 2+4 agreement, on the basis of which Germany was united. The agreement talked about the non-deployment of NATO troops east of Germany for a certain period of time. The agreement said nothing about the eastward expansion of NATO in general.
The reunification of West and East Germany was preceded by the 2+4 agreement of 1990, known as the Final Treaty on the Settlement of the German Question. The treaty was signed between the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, the US, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The treaty was signed by the leaders of all four states whose countries occupied the territory of Germany. The treaty established Germany’s borders, the right to join alliances, and determined the permissible number of military forces and nuclear weapons.
Article 4 of the agreement defined the conditions for the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from German territory and set the deadline for 1994. Since the Federal Republic of Germany has been a member of NATO since 1955, Article 5 of the treaty determined that until the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from German territory, only German territorial defence units, which were not integrated into the structures of the North Atlantic Alliance, would be stationed in East Germany. According to the same article, during this period, the forces of other countries would not be stationed on the territory of East Germany, and they would not carry out military activities. At the request of united Germany and other member countries of the treaty, the forces of France, the US and Great Britain would remain in Berlin until the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from German territory. According to the same article, after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, it would be possible to place the units of the German armed forces, which were integrated into the structures of the alliance, on the territory of East Germany, as well as on other German lands. The exception was the deployment of nuclear weapons and foreign units.
According to the archive documents of the US State Department, one of the most pressing issues in the process of the 2+4 agreement was the NATO membership of united Germany. Although Mikhail Gorbachev was initially against it, once it became clear that German reunification was imminent, he agreed to compromises in which a unified Germany would remain a member of NATO, although its military forces would be drastically reduced and they would refrain from military exercises on East German territory.
The 2+4 agreement neither talks about further expansion of NATO nor does it contain any condition about the Alliance’s eastward expansion. Russia has been actively amplifying the disinformation, as if the US had promised the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastwards and violated this promise. In fact, there is no evidence documenting such a promise. Mikhail Gorbachev himself said in an interview in 2014 that during the negotiations on the treaty, the issue of NATO expansion was not mentioned and only the deployment of additional forces in East Germany after German reunification was discussed. According to him, it was in this context that the former US Secretary of State, James Baker, made a comment that cites the Kremlin’s propaganda as evidence of the promise made by the US. It is about a 1990 recording of a conversation between Baker and Khrushchev, in which Baker said that if Germany remained in NATO, NATO’s jurisdiction would not expand to the east. Baker was talking about East Germany as far as German reunification and membership of the alliance was concerned, not Eastern Europe in general. Gorbachev himself confirms this, and it can be seen from the 2+4 final Agreement, where the placement of NATO forces in East Germany is limited for a certain period.
It should be noted that according to the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, NATO and Russia recognized and respected the independence and territorial integrity of all countries and their inalienable right to choose the preferred way of ensuring their security, inviolability of borders and the right of people to self-determination.
Notably, similar disinformation about the North Atlantic Alliance has been debunked by “Myth Detector” in the past as well. For more details, see:
Other Kremlin Propaganda Narratives Voiced in the Video
The video features additional claims that repeat the narratives of Kremlin propaganda. According to the video, Putin did not withdraw Russian troops from the occupied territories of Georgia, not because he did not trust the Georgian government, but because he does not trust the West after it “violated” the agreement by NATO, not to mention, the West demands Georgia to open a second front. The video says that the West cannot be trusted because they have not apologized for not admitting Georgia to NATO and “deceivingly forced the country to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan”, as well as for not giving Georgia, which “got rid of Saakashvili’s Nazi regime,” candidate status, when it was given to Ukraine, which is “ruled by Zelensky’s Nazi regime”. In the video, Saakashvili is mentioned as Washington’s puppet, because of which Georgia lost Abkhazia and Samachablo. Another reason for mistrust towards the West is the “appropriation of 600 million dollars” belonging to Bidzina Ivanishvili by the Swiss bank. According to the video, the reason for this is that “Georgia does not want to open a second front with Russia”. The video also mentions the recording of the conversation between Karasin and Abashidze and says that it may have been made by the US Embassy. The video also states that the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Vano Merabishvili, released the recording of the telephone conversation of the leader of the National Movement, Nika Melia, which indicates that even 11 years after the change of government, “the means of secret and totalitarian surveillance remain in the hands of the previous government” in Georgia.
The video also features Lavrov’s comment on the withdrawal of Russian bases from Georgia, when he said that Mikheil Saakashvili promised Russia to create a joint anti-terrorist centre in exchange for the withdrawal of military bases from Batumi and Akhalkalaki, but he lied to them. It should be noted that in 2020, Salome Zurabishvili responded to Lavrov’s statement. At the time of the discussions, Zurabishvili held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. She clarified that the initiative was not about the Georgian-Russian anti-terrorist centre, but about the creation of a format in which NATO, Georgia and Russia would participate.
About the Source
Facebook page Haylee Brajas was created on February 11, 2023 and is managed from Indonesia. It actively distributes statements of the leaders of Russia and Belarus and videos containing Kremlin narratives. The page often distributes videos published by the YouTube Channel ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫЙ СЛИВ.
As for the YouTube channel “ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫЙ СЛИВ,” it was registered on April 17, 2022 and actively publishes videos of anti-Ukrainian and pro-Kremlin content.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions.
