The promise was broken many times over. Engdahl wrote that the Maidan massacre in 2014 was perpetrated by CIA-organized snipers who killed dozens of student protesters and also police. The Prime Minister to fled and was replaced by a candidate that was hand-picked by the US State Department. The coup led to a civil war and ethnic cleansing of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine. Currently, there are multiple threats to Russia from Ukraine, including the possibility of a nuclear bomb being developed at Chernobyl and US-funded bioweapon research labs.
Engdahl considers whether the conflict in Ukraine could be a cover for a calculated move to use sanctions against Russia to cause global collapse and energy crises, food shortages and worse, all to advance the Davos 2030 Great Reset agenda.

The decision by the Russian President to order military action in neighboring Ukraine beginning February 24, 2022 has shocked many, myself included. The question at this point almost two weeks into military action by Russian and other forces inside Ukraine, is what pushed Russia into what Western media portrays as unilateral unwarranted war of aggression. A public threat by Ukrainian president and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 19, during meetings with top-level NATO officials and others in the annual Munich Security Conference, provides a largely-ignored clue to Moscow actions. In addition more recent reports of numerous US Pentagon bioweapons labs across Ukraine add to the background threats. Did Moscow believe Russia faced a literal do-or-die reality?