Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned US President Bill Clinton in 1997 that Nato’s eastward expansion was a “mistake,” but was reassured by Clinton that Nato would “not be a threat to Russia” according to newly declassified US government documents released by the National Security Archive at George Washington University on July 9. The documents also show that the Partnership for Peace (PFP) alternative to Nato expansion suggested by the US shortly after the fall of the USSR, which included Russia and Ukraine, was only a holding pattern to buy time until Yeltsin won re-election in 1996. Clint…