That was their position once NATO had expanded eastward. Here's an extract from a NATO report[0] in 2000. The whole chapter is genuinely worth a read: > Never

That was their position once NATO had expanded eastward. Here's an extract from a NATO report[0] in 2000. The whole chapter is genuinely worth a read: > Nevertheless, in August 1994, Boris Yeltsin again said to the reporters, that Russia could join NATO in due course. Then, during 6-7 years, this question was not raised by the Russian political elite and the mass media. The main reason for that was NATO’s expansion to the East... Russia actually has a long history of wanting to join [1] [0] https://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/98-00/davydov.pdf https://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/98-00/davydov.pdf [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/17/russia.iantraynor https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/17/russia.iantray...