The narrators are departing from the narrative. From Ted Snider at antitrust.com:
There are two things that go off script and are not allowed to be said. Every official statement or mainstream media article that mentions the war in Ukraine must call it an unprovoked war. You are not allowed to say that NATO expansion east, potentially to Ukraine and right up to Russia’s borders, was a provocation, even if you add that it does not justify the war. And you are not allowed to say that it is time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia and that conceding territory must be on the table. In the past couple of weeks, top NATO officials have said them both.
In his opening remarks to the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on September 7, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the stunning admission that Russian President Vladimir Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine, not entirely unprovoked, but – as Putin has always said – to push an encroaching NATO out of Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said that in 2021, prior to the war, Putin “sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.” Stoltenberg then went on, “He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. . .. We rejected that. So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.” The Secretary General of NATO then closed his remarks with the conclusion that “when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.”
