US National Security Archive has declassified a very interesting stenogram from 6 April 2008 talks between #Putin and Bush.
Putin first expressed his opposition to anti-missile bases in #Poland and #CzechRepublic because he wants to “see what’s targeted against us” (as a reminer, anti-missile systems are targeted against incoming missiles).
But then he moves to the core issue and simply says it’s not about #Ukraine being in #NATO or not, but about Ukraine willing to move to the “Western world” that is his problem”.
Relying on the anti-NATO forces in Ukraine, Russia would be working on stripping NATO of the possibility of enlarging. Russia would be creating problems there all the time. What for? What is the meaning of Ukrainian membership in NATO? What benefit is there for NA.TO and the U.S.? There can be only one reason for it and that would be to cement Ukraine’s status as in the Western world and that would be the logic.
Apparently understanding how stupid that sounds to Bush, Putin then switches to his usual ramblings about “Lenin gave Ukraine this, Khruschev gave them that and besides that it was always Russian lands”. Note, he used this argument already in 2008 and seems to be absolutely convinced that some historic revisionism gives him some kind of entitlement to a whole country, with which he signed a Friendship Agreement only a few years before.
