WASHINGTON, December 23. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his US counterpart, George W. Bush, back in 2008 that Washington’s intention to admit Ukraine to NATO will cause a long-term confrontation between Russia and the United States, according to declassified US government documents released by the National Security Archive, a public research organization affiliated with George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
"Now I'd like to repeat what I said to Condi and Gates (the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - TASS) in Moscow on NATO enlargement. It won't be new to you, and I don't expect a response; I just want to say it out loud. I'd like to emphasize accession to NATO of a country like Ukraine will create for the long-term a field of conflict for you and us, long-term confrontation," Putin was quoted as saying by the US National Security Council translators.
When asked by Bush why he though so, Putin said that this would create a threat of NATO moving its military bases and various arms systems to the exact proximity to the Russian border. Apart from that, he noted that not all the Ukrainians were happy about their country’s potential membership in NATO and that a third of Ukraine’s population, or 17 million people, were Russians.
