By going to war with Georgia in 2008, Russia halted NATO's expansion eastward, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday, Nov 21.

“If we had wavered in 2008, the geopolitical layout would have been different; a range of countries which the North Atlantic [Treaty Organization] tries to artificially ‘protect’ would have been within it,” Medvedev said at a meeting with military officers in Vladikavkaz in southern Russia, RIA Novosti reported.