NATO to say: Russia demands to legally fix the alliance's refusal to expand

Russia will demand that NATO legally consolidate the non-expansion clause to the east, the Russian Embassy in Belgium told Izvestia. The North Atlantic Alliance should also reverse the decisions of the Bucharest summit in 2008, when the West promised Ukraine and Georgia a place in the bloc. Today, NATO is actively cooperating with Russia's closest neighbors, including Azerbaijan and Armenia, and Moldova may abandon neutrality in order to join the alliance. However, after Donald Trump came to power, the United States postponed the ambitious plans of the alliance and called the promise to accept Ukraine a mistake. Whether Moscow will be able to change the policy of "open doors" is in the Izvestia article.

The Russian Federation will insist on fixing the agreements "on paper"

Back in December 2021, Moscow handed over to Washington and its allies the draft treaty with the United States and the agreement with NATO on security guarantees, where one of the points was the requirement not to expand the military alliance. In the near future, the Russian Federation is not going to give up its position to document this requirement, the Russian Embassy in Belgium told Izvestia.

"The Russian Federation will insist on fixing the relevant agreements on paper, including canceling the decisions of the Bucharest summit, because all the verbal promises made by the NATO members themselves in the past about not expanding the bloc were forgotten and ignored at a convenient moment," the embassy said.

They recalled that the leaders of the key member countries of the alliance, even during the unification of Germany in 1990, assured the leadership of the USSR that NATO had no plans to expand eastward after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from German territory.

"Documentary evidence of such assurances is contained in the archives of the relevant states, but they are deliberately not published in the West," the Russian embassy explained.

In 2008, at the Bucharest summit, the alliance promised that Ukraine and Georgia would join it one day. In June 2025, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that the promise to accept Kiev in the future remains in force.

— We said that this path to NATO is irreversible. And this assessment will not change after the summit [in London]," he said.

Ukraine's desire to join the North Atlantic Alliance and the EU is spelled out in the country's Constitution. At the same time, Kiev's non-entry into the alliance is considered as a key condition for concluding peace, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted earlier. On February 17, the next round of trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine took place in Geneva.

In Georgia, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze called the country's prospect of becoming a NATO member vague, especially after the publication of the US National Security Strategy. The document dated December 5, 2025 stipulates that the alliance should cease to be perceived as an ever-expanding bloc. In addition, the new Georgian authorities have very difficult relations with the EU and many European capitals that are part of NATO. In addition, we must not forget about the country's territorial conflict with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Moscow views any expansion of NATO to the east, no matter which former Soviet republics it affects, as a threat to vital national security interests. According to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the bloc is striving to expand, despite the OSCE commitments not to strengthen its own security at the expense of others.

At the same time, the Russian Federation is concerned that the expansion in the future may affect not only Ukraine and Moldova, but also the countries of the Caucasus, where Turkey's role has increased in recent years, says Tigran Meloyan, an analyst at the HSE Center for Mediterranean Studies.

— Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has consistently opposed the approach of the military infrastructure of NATO member countries to its borders, and this position is quite clearly stated in the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation. For its part, Moscow not only opposes the expansion of NATO into the territories of the former Soviet republics, but also offers such countries its security guarantees under the umbrella of the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization]," he told Izvestia.

Today, in addition to Russia, the CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But Yerevan may rethink its membership in the organization. In November 2023, Armenia refused to participate in its summit and removed the aid document from the agenda. Although the Armenian government claims that the country's accession to NATO is not being discussed by its authorities, in early June 2024, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, Major General Artur Yeroyan, participated in a meeting of the NATO military Committee, expressing hope for further cooperation.

Moldova, where its neutral status is enshrined in the Constitution, is moving closer to the alliance. Joint exercises with the bloc have repeatedly been held in the country, and in 2024 Chisinau announced the launch of the largest NATO Swift Response maneuvers. In 2023, President Maia Sandu allowed the republic to become "part of a large alliance," saying that Chisinau was considering the need to amend the Constitution. In the summer of 2025, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reported that if the pro-presidential party wins the parliamentary elections in the republic, which eventually happened, Sandu may abandon its neutral status. However, Moldova's possible entry into the alliance is complicated by the factor of Transnistria, where Russian peacekeepers are currently stationed.

Azerbaijan, which is not a member of either the CSTO or the North Atlantic Alliance, also cooperates with the Western bloc. In November 2025, President Ilham Aliyev received a NATO delegation in Baku and announced the transfer of the army to the standards of the alliance. Both sides also have an individual partnership action plan, which outlines the details of military-technical cooperation.

Thus, Sergey Lavrov's statement that the expansion of NATO "does not stop for a minute" has good reasons. The last countries to join the alliance in 2023-2024 were Sweden and Finland.

Georgia, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) currently have postgraduate student status in NATO. At the same time, Republika Srpska, the entity of BiH, opposes, and without its consent, the country's accession to the bloc is impossible.

For the Russian Federation, the accession of BiH to NATO, taking into account at least the geographical factor, does not pose the same risks as joining the bloc of post-Soviet republics. However, this certainly provokes additional tension in the Balkans.

The status of a candidate country means that NATO is ready to step up dialogue on membership and related reforms with a state wishing to join the alliance.

NATO: the Foreign Ministry ruled out a deal on Ukraine without guarantees of Russia's security

Is a compromise possible while the West "does not see" Moscow's interests?

Will NATO review its "open door" policy

Recently, especially with the coming to power in the United States of Donald Trump, not all members of the Western military alliance support the expansion process. Even the accession of Sweden and Finland was blocked for some time by Turkey and Hungary.

The United States, Hungary, Slovakia and a number of other states make it clear, directly or indirectly, that they are not ready to see Ukraine in the NATO ranks, realizing the potential catastrophic consequences of this venture, the Russian Embassy in Belgium reminded Izvestia.

Trump openly called attempts to draw Ukraine into the bloc a mistake, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the alliance should realize that Moscow's inevitable reaction would follow the deployment of military forces near the borders of the Russian Federation.

"It is difficult to rely on common sense in relation to NATO, but at least the opinion of the member states that are not the last in the alliance should mean something," the Russian Embassy is confident.

Trump's arrival in the White House has changed the situation within the North Atlantic Alliance. First, he demanded that all NATO countries increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP, stressing that states must ensure their own security.

Secondly, the Republican opposed Ukraine's admission to NATO, which, according to experts, is why, for the first time since the 1990s, the final declaration of the bloc's summit, adopted in The Hague on June 25, did not mention the commitment to an "open door" policy.

This principle is enshrined in article 10 of the Washington Treaty. According to its content, the parties can propose to any other European state to join the military-political bloc, but for this it is necessary to fulfill a number of relevant conditions.

— We have already seen that the United States has consolidated the rejection of NATO expansion in its national security strategy. Of course, practical steps are needed, including through dialogue with Moscow. But in the current conditions, one can hardly expect a consensus to be reached between the countries of the alliance," Oleg Karpovich, head of the Department of the MGIMO Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in a conversation with Izvestia.

The signing of an agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation or Russia and NATO, which would oblige the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon expansion to the east, is now considered as a politically unattainable and legally difficult task, Tigran Meloyan believes. According to him, it would contradict the principle of "open doors".

— To move away from it, it will require internal changes, including at the conceptual and doctrinal levels, which is unlikely in the current strategic environment. To do this, the alliance must be on the verge of collapse or face a threat that it would be too much for it to handle," the expert explained.

Nevertheless, even without this agreement, the expansion of NATO in the future looks unlikely, largely due to Washington's position. The US President's special envoy Keith Kellogg said that Russia's concerns were justified. According to him, Washington is ready to stop expanding to the borders with the Russian Federation. Oleg Karpovich summarized: Europe, even if it doesn't like it very much, will have to accept the position of the hegemon.