Elon Musk shares video claiming NATO expansion, not Russia, provoked Ukraine war

Tech billionaire Elon Musk shared a video on Tuesday featuring American economist Jeffery D Sachs, who explained how the US-led NATO expansion, rather than Russian aggression, provoked the war in Ukraine. 
In the video shared on X, the American economist argued that the US’s intention to expand NATO to Ukraine led to the attack by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This is not an attack by Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, in the way that we are told today,” Sachs says in the video. The exact date and time of the video could not be verified. 
Jeffrey D Sachs has been critical of the Joe Biden administration for falsely claiming that Russia’s attack on Ukraine was “unprovoked.”
“The Biden team uses the word ‘unprovoked’ incessantly, most recently in Biden’s major speech on the first-year anniversary of the war,” Sachs wrote in a 2023 article for Common Dreams.
In the video, Sachs recalled NATO’s 1990 commitment to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that the alliance would not “move one inch eastward if you agree to German unification.” 
Sachs argued that problems began when the US started to break that promise. 
“The expansion of NATO officially began in 1999 with the inclusion of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The US also led the bombing of Serbia in 1999, which involved NATO bombing Belgrade for 78 straight days,” Sachs said in the video, adding that Russia disapproved of the action at the time.
Sachs also claimed that Vladimir Putin was once a “pro-European” and had even considered joining NATO for a “mutually respectful relationship.” 
He said that the situation worsened when the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.
“In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty. What it did was to trigger the US putting in missile systems in Eastern Europe, which Russia views as a dire direct threat to its national security,” he said.
Sachs claimed that America played an active role in regime change in Ukraine politics in 2014, exacerbating tensions despite Putin’s repeated warnings about US-led NATO expansion.