Racket News, 3/7/25
By Matt Taibbi and Greg Collard
Where to find relevant documents, videos, translations, and procurement statistics for the conflict that began with a Russian incursion in February, 2022
On February 24th, 2022, at 5:30 AM Moscow time, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a televised speech announcing a “special military operation.” Here is that address, with English subtitles:
(Go to original page – link above – to view video – NB)
Minutes later, explosions were recorded in Dnipro, Kharkiv, and other locations across Ukraine. This footage was shot near the Antonov Airport in Kyiv:
(Go to original page – link above – to view video – NB)
Many would call this the beginning of the Ukraine war. Others would say it started weeks, months, years, or even decades earlier. This is why any effort at a “timeline” for this war is controversial.
Academics like Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer would say a disagreement about NATO expansion dating to the early 1990s, before the Soviet collapse, is necessary context. The United States Department of Defense, meanwhile, marks the same date of February 24th, 2022, and specifically Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s order sending 7,000 troops to Europe, as the first event in its “Ukraine Events” timeline.
Both old and new materials appear below, in a collection that as always favors full primary source materials over links. When possible, we’ll provide brief context, with contemporary critics given voice.
This list is not meant to be comprehensive and will be continually updated. If you think we left out something important, we want to hear from you. More to the point, if you think something relevant has been overlooked for a reason, we want to hear that complaint. Please let us know what we missed and send what you have to library@racket.news.
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February 9th, 1990
Memorandum of conversation between Secretary of State James Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev. Prepared by the State Department and public via a FOIA address, the heavily redacted document nonetheless contains an oft-cited passage from Baker: “We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that… not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”
Bakergorbachev
238KB ∙ PDF file
February 9th, 1990
Conversation between James Baker and Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, which repeats the formulation. “There would, of course, have to be iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward. And this would have to be done in a manner that would satisfy Germany’s neighbors to the east.” This memo was written by former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, who confirmed the story to Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone in 2017:
Bakershevardnadze
191KB ∙ PDF file
February 12, 1990
Notes of Shevardnadze aide Teimuraz Stepanov-Mamaladze, saying, “If [unified Germany] stays in NATO, we should take care about non-expansion of its jurisdiction to the east.”
Document 10 01 Teimuraz Stepanov Mamaladze Notes
101KB ∙ PDF file
July 16, 1990
Ukraine issues a Declaration of Sovereignty, part of which involves an agreement “not to accept, produce, or acquire nuclear weapons.” It’s the first step to becoming a full non-nuclear weapon state in the Non-Proliferation Treaty some years later. Had it not made this move, Ukraine would have been the third most heavily armed nuclear power in the world. It had 176 long-range ballistic missiles and 42 nuclear bombers containing roughly 1,900 nuclear warheads.
December 1, 1991
Ukrainians overwhelmingly vote for independence in a referendum. The lowest votes are in Sevastopol and Crimea, but even those are majority votes in favor of secession from the USSR. Supreme Soviet Chairman Leonid Kravchuk is elected president.
Ukrainian Independence Referendum – Seventeen Moments In Soviet History
127KB ∙ PDF file
120191ukrainereferendum
61KB ∙ PDF file
October 19, 1993
White House staff secretary John Podesta and deputy Todd Stern outline a new two-track policy, one that imagines welcoming former Soviet satellites into NATO without a firm timetable, and a second that creates a “Partnership for Peace” that could include “all European states.” National Security Adviser Anthony Lake explains to Bill Clinton, “All your advisors agree that doing anything at this stage to indicate that NATO’s border will move closer to Russia and Ukraine without at the same time including those two states would have major negative consequences within both.”
Podestalnn
257KB ∙ PDF file
October 22, 1993
Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and, upon being told about the NATO expansion, reportedly says, “This is genius!” Some reports claim Yeltsin was drunk and misunderstood, believing the “Partnership for Peace” would take place instead of wider NATO growth. Subsequent Russian cables show a different reaction.
Document 08 Secretary Christopher S Meeting With
250KB ∙ PDF file
January 10, 1994
President Bill Clinton announces a new Partnership for Peace, in which NATO membership is open “to all the former Communist states of the Warsaw Pact, along with other non-NATO states.” Asked who is the enemy, he answers, “Well, there will be different enemies.”
The President’s News Conference | The American Presidency Project
1.22MB ∙ PDF file
January 14, 1994
Kravchuk, Yeltsin, and Clinton sign the “Trilateral Statement.” Ukraine surrenders warheads and receives financial compensation from the United States and fuel rods for nuclear power plants from Russia. In return, the U.S. and Russia pledge to “reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate UN Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”
Between the Baker-Gorbachev discussions about NATO and the later Trilateral Agreement, both Ukrainian and Russian politicians will come to believe they were lied to by American diplomats.
Trilateralstatement
1.73MB ∙ PDF file
June 28, 1996
Ukraine adopts a new constitution, breaking from its Soviet legal legacy. It enshrines Ukrainian as the sole state language and outlaws foreign military bases, leaving the status of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol, uncertain.
Ukconstitution
150KB ∙ PDF file
April 24, 1997
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and leaders of 19 NATO countries sign a “Distinctive Partnership” agreement. Kuchma had previously declared that Ukraine made a “strategic choice of integrating in European and Transatlantic structures.” Two NATO officers, one civilian and one military, are stationed in Kyiv, and “the NATO Allies have officially designated the Yavoriv defence training area, west of Lviv, as a [Partnership for Peace] training centre.”
Distinctivepartnership
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May 27, 1997
NATO member states and Russia sign the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation. It says NATO is undergoing “a historic transformation — a process that will continue,” in which its “political functions” will expand. New member states will not feature any “threatening build-up of conventional forces” and as matters stood, would seek to avoid “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.”
Natoreformagreement
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May 29, 1997
Russia and Ukraine sign the Black Sea Accords, under which Russia leases the Sevastopol base from Ukraine for 20 years. The status of Crimea, which was given to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in 1954, continues to be a source of tension for some Russians, with nationalist politicians beginning to make demands that it be returned.
Blackseafleetagreement1997(in Russian)
751KB ∙ PDF file
June 26, 1997
50 prominent American policymakers, including Democrats like Bill Bradley and Gary Hart, sign a joint letter to Clinton opposing NATO expansion in favor of preserving the START II denuclearization. “NATO expansion will make it much more difficult to establish the atmosphere of trust required for Moscow to agree to additional transparency measures,” they wrote.
Opposition To Nato Expansion | Arms Control Association
219KB ∙ PDF file
July 25, 1998
Vladimir Putin, a former first deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, is hired to be head of the FSB by Boris Yeltsin. Putin, who helped his former boss Anatoly Sobchak escape corruption charges, makes a name for himself by suppressing investigations of Yeltsin. On March 18, 1999, a video of “a person, resembling [General Prosecutor Yuri] Skuratov” is shown on television cavorting with “two girls of easy behavior.” Putin says Skuratov, who was investigating Yeltsin, must resign.
February 23, 1999
NATO officials after meeting at the Château de Rambouillet in France propose an eponymous peace agreement to Serbia, seeking to end hostilities with Albanian neighbors. It declares that the “use of force in Kosovo shall cease immediately” and explains that a NATO-based authority called KFOR will police the territory of the former Yugoslavia to maintain the peace.
990123rambouilletaccord
3.37MB ∙ PDF file
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