We have eyewitness testimony (...) he USSR would leave East Germany knowing that Western warmongers would expand NATO all the way to the USSR's border
What eyewitness? Gorbachev? Gorbachev himself admitted that NATO expansion wasn't discussed in detail during the Germany reunification negotiations, for a very simple reason - there was no need. Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact still existed back then and nobody predicted the incoming dissolution of the two.
So I assume you cannot provide anything concrete, anything substantial - like a legally binding document (or any document really) saying that NATO promised not to expand eastwards? Surprise, surprise.
We didn't do anything.
If even a quarter of what Felshtinsky writes in his book is true, then you most emphatically did something.
Russia could not have done this - this is beyond its capability.
You could have recruited Trump though (and quite likely did).
the West was not to be trusted
Good Marshall Piłsudski said to his generals before he died - "The West is rotten. Don't trust them" ("
Zachód jest parszywieńki. Nie dowierzajcie im."). How right he was! And it wasn't the first time that he called the West "
parszywieńki" ("parszywy" can mean 'rotten' or 'lousy' but the diminutive shows extra disdain).
But still, the lousy rotten West is better than chaos, violence and total disregard for anything resembling international law (invading a country, Hitler-style, without declaring war, on the basis of denazifying it - really?). That's why the West - being rotten and lousy as it is - rose against Putin.
Are Euros here stupid or evil or both?
Both. But no more stupid and evil than either Russians or Americans. It is not about character traits - we are all scoundrels - but a clash of different visions of the world: freedom vs serfdom, individualism vs hive, free enterprise vs omnipotent state, power-based international policies vs international institutions and global cooperation. Crow is right that the border between Russia and the EU... or more generally Russkiy Mir and the West, is the border between very different civilisations, and every now and then - as we know from history - civilisations clash.