@kadmitriev ↔ @DietHeartNews conversation
Kirill Dmitriev@kadmitriev
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Dec 26, 2025
~1 min read
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Kirill Dmitriev@kadmitriev
Historical clip worth rewatching: President Putin on Russia potentially joining NATO, George W. Bush laughing, and why Moscow views NATO as an anti-Russia bloc—not a “defensive alliance.” This one explains a lot. 👇
1:52
Alan Watson@DietHeartNews
10 Feb 2007: Vladimir Putin was invited to speak at the Munich Security Conference. He questioned NATO's eastward expansion and its role in promoting tension and distrust between Russia and the West. Putin: “It turns out that NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders..."
"I think it’s obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary,” Putin added, “it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”
Putin asked, “Against whom is this expansion intended? What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”
Putin reminded the audience what German Diplomat Manfred Wörner, then serving as NATO General Secretary, said on 17 May 1990 in Brussels: “The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.” Where are these guarantees?
Putin: “And now [NATO countries] are trying to impose new dividing lines and walls on us – walls that cut through our continent. And is it possible that we will once again require many years and decades to dissemble and dismantle these new walls?”
In 1997, during a Senate hearing on Clinton’s proposed NATO expansion, State Department icon and Princeton professor George Kennan, fluent in both German and Russian, "who knew Russia best," called Clinton's proposed NATO expansion, “the most fateful error of US policy in the post-Cold War era."
His final warning: "Don't meddle in the #Ukraine."
"I think it’s obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary,” Putin added, “it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”
Putin asked, “Against whom is this expansion intended? What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”
Putin reminded the audience what German Diplomat Manfred Wörner, then serving as NATO General Secretary, said on 17 May 1990 in Brussels: “The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.” Where are these guarantees?
Putin: “And now [NATO countries] are trying to impose new dividing lines and walls on us – walls that cut through our continent. And is it possible that we will once again require many years and decades to dissemble and dismantle these new walls?”
In 1997, during a Senate hearing on Clinton’s proposed NATO expansion, State Department icon and Princeton professor George Kennan, fluent in both German and Russian, "who knew Russia best," called Clinton's proposed NATO expansion, “the most fateful error of US policy in the post-Cold War era."
His final warning: "Don't meddle in the #Ukraine."