beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990." According to Ben Nimmo of the Central European Policy Institute, the Russian media was "distorting Western perceptions of the conflict. Claims that NATO promised not to expand into Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) after German reunification, and that Russia's fear of that enlargement is justifiable, have entered the mainstream media, creating the impression that the West is to blame for Russia's direct assault on Ukraine." Applebaum and French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy rejected assertions that Russia had suffered "humiliation" and "encirclement". In an article for the Guardian, Christopher Clark and Kristina Spohr wrote that "misframing the past as a narrative of deceptions, betrayals and humiliations is a profoundly dangerous move" which undermined "the entire fabric of treaties and settlements that make up the post-cold war order." Accused of trying to "encircle" Russia and deepening divisions by accepting new members, NATO said that the statement "ignores the facts of geography. Russia's land border is just over 20,000 kilometres long. Of that, 1,215 kilometres, or less than one-sixteenth, face current NATO members" and referred to the "Helsinki Final Act which says that every state has the right "to belong or not to belong to international organizations, to be or not to be a party to bilateral or multilateral treaties including the right to be or not to be a party to treaties of alliance." And by signing the NATO-Russia Founding Act, Russia agreed to respect states' "inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security."" On 2 December 2014, the Ukrainian government created the Ministry of Information; according to its Minister, Yuriy Stets, one of its goals is "active counteraction to the Russian information aggression". In December 2014, Latvia's foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, said that Russian news channels had become "very aggressive in what can no longer be considered normal news or normal journalism, but is more information warfare and propaganda" and said the EU was discussing whether "to invest jointly in alternative sources of information — not alternative propaganda sources, but an alternative normal European TV channel, with entertainment, with news, but with very factually accurate news." Peter Pomerantsev said Russian reporting of the proposal sought to "draw equivalence," adding, "Just by saying, 'There's an information war,' it implies two sides doing equally naughty things, so it's OK for Russia to