This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge. 

“This is not about NATO expansion!”… the Western public has been told over and over again of the war in Ukraine, now in its 20th month. “Never about NATO… Nothing to do with NATO” – has been the constant refrain from US officials and media “authorities”.

Below is a video compilation by Matt Orfalea showing Western media personalities and analysts claiming that the war in Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansion… but then oops… only this last month NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism in a speech before the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

For a trip down memory lane, and more importantly so this epic compilation of clips highlighting the MSM drumbeat of lies doesn’t get memory-holed, watch the below compilation by Matt Orfalea…

Stoltenberg’s September 7th speech laid out in reference to Vladimir Putin, “He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership.”

Stoltenberg then emphasized in what constitutes a rare moment of agreement with Professor John Mearsheimer (unintentional perhaps)

“We [NATO] rejected that. So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”  

Below is the original Stoltenberg footage from early September in full…

NATO Sec-Gen Jens Stoltenberg declares the Ukraine proxy war a fight for NATO expansion and the limitless right to place military installations on Russia’s frontiers – something no Western power would accept from an adversary pic.twitter.com/ZaJFBjQnre

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 22, 2023