Vladimir Putin Nato Quotations

Russia proposed working with Europe and NATO to create an anti-rocket defense system for Europe, ... On one hand, it would avoid all the problems linked to the balance of force; on the other, it would permit in an absolute manner a 100 percent guarantee of the security of every European country.

NATO was built to counteract the Soviet Union in its day and time. At this point there is no threat coming from the Soviet Union, because there is no Soviet Union anymore. And where there was the Soviet Union once, there is now a number of countries, among them the new and democratic Russia.

Now they [NATO and the USA ] are sitting there, and we are talking about all these crises we would otherwise not have. You can also see this striving for an absolute triumph in the American missile defense plans.

I have heard this a thousand times. Of course every state has the right to organize its security the way it deems appropriate. But the states that were already in NATO, the member states, could also have followed their own interests - and abstained from an expansion to the east.

[Egon] Bahr even said: If Russia agreed to the NATO expansion, he would never come to Moscow again.