Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush in the early 2000s that Russia felt excluded from NATO and resented losing Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a U.S. government memorandum released by the National Security Archive.
The document, highlighted this week by Voice of Ukraine (NV), provides a detailed record of Putin’s private remarks years before relations between Moscow and the West sharply deteriorated. We reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
Why It Matters
The memo offers contemporaneous evidence of how Putin viewed NATO expansion and post-Soviet borders well before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It helps contextualize arguments Putin has repeatedly advanced to justify Russia’s foreign policy decisions.
The document also underscores how differently Moscow framed its relationship with NATO in the early 2000s compared with later years, when the alliance came to be portrayed by the Kremlin as a primary security threat.
What To Know
According to a 2001 memorandum of conversation released by the National Security Archive, Bush told Putin during a restricted meeting that “a strong Russia is in the interest of the United States” and encouraged cooperation against shared security threats following the September 11 attacks.
Putin responded by calling for what he described as “honesty” in bilateral relations and argued that Russia had been treated unfairly after the Soviet Union’s collapse. He complained that Moscow had voluntarily surrendered vast territory, naming Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Caucasus, and said many Russians felt deceived by the political transformations of the 1990s.
Putin also told Bush that Russia “feels excluded from NATO,” despite what he argued were changed conditions since the Cold War. He cited the Soviet Union’s 1954 application to join NATO, saying the alliance had previously rejected it for specific political reasons that, in his view, no longer applied.
As noted by NV, Putin’s tone shifted markedly by 2008. That year, he warned Bush that Ukraine was “an artificial country” created in Soviet times and said Russia would “constantly create problems there” if Kyiv pursued NATO membership.
Explicit caveat: The memorandum records statements made by the two leaders during the meeting but does not independently verify Putin’s historical claims about borders, sovereignty, or public opinion in post-Soviet states. The document reflects what was said in private discussions, not formal U.S. assessments, as outlined by the National Security Archive.
What People Are Saying
Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, said during the 2001 meeting, according to the National Security Archive memo: “What really happened? Soviet goodwill voluntarily changed the world… Ukraine, which for centuries had been part of Russia, was given away.”
Putin also said Russia “feels excluded from NATO” and argued that the alliance’s historical objections to Soviet membership had been resolved, the document shows.
George W. Bush, then U.S. president, told Putin that “a strong Russia is in the interest of the United States,” according to the archived record of the meeting.
What Happens Next
The National Security Archive continues to release declassified U.S. records related to post–Cold War relations with Russia. Additional documents may further illuminate how early discussions between Washington and Moscow shaped the security landscape that followed.
