[dragonwriter]

> Americans adore the idea that just because it wasnt written down, it somehow holds no value to the parties involved.

Yeah, pretty much all of the world recognizes that there is a pretty big difference, especially as to applicability several decades later, between different governments (one one side not even of the same entity, but instead the entity that was a leader among those overthrowing the one directly involved in the initial conversation) between something one official said to another in the course of negotiation and a signed and ratified treaty.

(Not that even a signed and ratified treaty between Russia and every single member of NATO in 1989 being violated would be, under international law, a justification for invasion of Ukraine—who is not in any version of any story a party, except perhaps as co-inheritor of Soviet interests, to the alleged commitment—in violation of the UN Charter and, in the case of the original 2014 invasion, Russia’s treaty obligations to Ukraine, and not that even if there was a legal justification for the invasion it would justified Russia’s rampant war crimes during the invasion.)