The chance of Ukraine giving up territory increases a lot once they lose all their fortified front lines and the piece of land which Russia currently doesn’t control It has the highest elevation of any landmass in the area

Gorbatschow and the former Marshall of the USSR both denied the existence of these verbal assurances They found NATO expansion bad and a grave mistake but never had any reassurances by the West of not expanding To be honest, I find it ridiculous that the Baltic states which could easily be invaded within a few days without foreign help would need to cope with a constant threat of invasion just because Russia is unsecure