According to documents declassified and released by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), President Putin cautioned President Bush that Washington’s plans to expand NATO to include Ukraine would create a long-term conflict between the two countries.
“I want to recall what I told Condi and Gates in Moscow about NATO expansion,” Putin was quoted as saying, referring to then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “This is probably not new to you, and I do not expect a response. I simply want to say it out loud. I want to emphasize that bringing a country like Ukraine into NATO would create a long-term conflict zone for both you and us—a prolonged confrontation,” according to a U.S. National Security Council interpreter’s record.
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When President Bush asked for clarification, Putin argued that NATO expansion would pose a threat by moving military bases and weapons systems closer to Russia’s borders. He also noted that not all Ukrainians supported NATO membership at the time, adding that roughly one-third of Ukraine’s population then was ethnically Russian.
In a February 2024 interview with U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson, President Putin reiterated that Washington had pressured several NATO members to support the alliance’s expansion to include Ukraine and Georgia.
“In 2008, at the Bucharest summit, they declared that the doors of NATO were open to Ukraine and Georgia,” Putin said. “Germany and France appeared to oppose it, as did some other European countries. But then President Bush put pressure on them, and they were forced to agree.”
Putin added that Western leaders later told him Ukraine would not join NATO. “I said, ‘I don’t know. I know you agreed to it in 2008. Why wouldn’t you agree to it in the future?’ And they replied, ‘Well, we were pressured at the time,’” he said.
At the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, alliance members included a written commitment in the final declaration stating that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members, without specifying a timeline.
In February 2019, Ukraine’s parliament passed constitutional amendments reinforcing the country’s pursuit of NATO membership. President Volodymyr Zelensky has also repeatedly stated that Ukraine seeks to join the alliance.