Overview
- The release covers conversations from 2001 to 2008, obtained after the National Security Archive’s lawsuit accelerated declassification by the National Archives.
- In their first 2001 meeting, Putin called Pakistan “just a junta with nuclear weapons” and pressed that the West was overlooking the risk.
- A 2005 Oval Office exchange records both leaders saying they were nervous after learning uranium of Pakistani origin was found in Iranian centrifuges, with Bush citing talks with Pervez Musharraf and A. Q. Khan’s house arrest.
- Putin told Bush in 2001 that Russia felt “left out” of NATO and floated the notion of becoming an ally or even joining the alliance.
- By April 2008, Putin privately labeled Ukraine an “artificial state” and warned that bringing it into NATO would create a long-term field of conflict.