By John Q. Hosedrinker 
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi refuted Russian justifications for the war in Ukraine, highlighting that the claims of NATO expansion being a threat contradict President Putin’s own statements from 2004. At that time, Putin welcomed NATO enlargement and expressed hope it would strengthen trust. Tykhyi accuses Putin of rewriting history to justify his aggression. He emphasized that NATO expansion has never threatened Russia; instead, it has denied Moscow the ability to conquer sovereign European nations.
Read the original article here
Putin’s 2004 words on NATO enlargement, strikingly, reveal the Kremlin’s carefully constructed narrative regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine. Consider the recent statements, where Putin downplays NATO as a threat, even with increased military spending. He’s even been pulling troops from Kaliningrad, a region geographically surrounded by NATO members. This is a stark contrast to the rhetoric we’ve become accustomed to, the narrative that paints NATO as an existential threat, aggressively encircling Russia.
His words from April 8, 2004, are even more telling. During a meeting with NATO’s Secretary General in Moscow, Putin stated, “Every country has the right to choose the option that it considers most effective for ensuring its own security.” This statement, delivered just days after the Baltic states were invited to join NATO, provides a crucial insight into the true situation.
We, as a society, have known this for quite some time. It is quite clear that the Kremlin’s current stance is not a new position. This particular quote from 2004 indicates that, at least publicly, Russia wasn’t overtly opposed to the expansion of NATO. This contradicts the current framing of the war, which is largely based on the supposed violation of Russia’s security interests by NATO’s eastward expansion. The truth likely sits somewhere in between; at that time, Russia may have been publicly adopting a posture of strength and indifference, but privately, the situation probably caused some concern.
The timeline surrounding this period is critical. The NATO-Russia Council, created in 2002, initially presented a glimmer of hope that Russia might even be included in the organization. Then, on March 29, 2004, NATO admitted seven Eastern European states, a move that many in Russia perceived as an encroachment on their sphere of influence. This was viewed as NATO expanding into minor countries instead of directly engaging with Russia. This is, crucially, the backdrop against which Putin made his seemingly innocuous comments welcoming NATO’s Secretary General in Moscow on April 8th. It really underscores the shift in narrative that is happening today.
Fast forward to February 2007, and the landscape shifts dramatically. Putin delivers his notorious Munich Security Conference speech, where he openly and harshly criticizes NATO expansion and the perceived unilateralism of the United States. This marked a definitive shift, a public declaration of disillusionment with the West. It is almost as if something happened between those two events to change the perspective. The narrative changed completely between these periods.
The 2008 Bucharest Summit then comes into play, where NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members,” although, it’s important to note, without a specific timeline. And, as the world watched, Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008. It’s a strategic move, which is still unfolding, where Russia then began to use historical arguments to justify its actions, often cherry-picking historical facts and skipping over inconvenient truths. For example, Russia goes back to the 19th and 20th centuries to build the case that Ukraine has always been Russian. This is a very selective retelling of history and ignores periods that don’t support the argument. The fact that Kyiv predates Moscow by about 650 years is often conveniently omitted.
Looking back at Putin’s 2004 comments now, in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, it becomes clear that the Kremlin’s current justifications are, at best, a distortion of the historical reality. The original statement, made when NATO was expanding and on Russia’s border, strongly contrasts the justifications for the war today. It highlights the strategic and political maneuvering of the Kremlin, revealing the extent to which the current narrative is designed to obscure the true motives behind the actions in Ukraine.