Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule

Vladimir Putin said in 2000 that he ‘cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world’. Photograph: Evgeniy Paulin/Sputnik/EPA

Vladimir Putin said in 2000 that he ‘cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world’. Photograph: Evgeniy Paulin/Sputnik/EPA

source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule