By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
The official record of three conversations President Vladimir Putin (lead images, right) had with President George W. Bush (lead images, left) in 2001, 2005, and 2008 has just been released in Washington.
This follows a federal court lawsuit to compel the US National Archives to speed up the declassification process which was initially to have ended in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, and which the Biden Administration then attempted to block for another decade. A lawsuit, filed in November 2024, identified 19 separate face-to-face meetings between Putin and Bush, and 73 telephone calls over Bush’s two terms, 2001-2009.
Stonewalling by the National Archives and the White House ended with the release of documents early this month. Three texts have been released and can be read in full here. Other records, including telephone calls, are expected to follow.
The hitherto secret remarks of Putin are almost identical with what he was saying at the time in public, and what he has subsequently said in opposition to the US plans to make the Ukraine a platform for NATO threats to Russia.
Equally unsurprising is the record that Bush made of his readiness to listen to Putin, and also of his evasiveness and misrepresentation in response – amplified at the time by his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Although Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Yury Ushakov, then Russian Ambassador to the US, were present at the second and third meetings, the record shows they had less than their counterparts to say – that is, next to nothing.
Read in retrospect since Putin has negotiated strategic partnership and defence agreements with North Korea in 2024 and Iran this year, Putin’s negative references towards the North Korean and Iran leaders he had met are noteworthy. “There may be a lot of nuts there”, Putin said of the North Koreans in 2005, “but not everyone is.” About the Iranians, whom Bush called “religious nuts with nuclear weapons”, Putin responded: “They’re quite nuts…They may be crazy in their ideology, but they are intellectuals…That was quite a surprise to me.”
Putin added a qualifier. He believed North Korea’s policies, he told Bush, were the result of the security threats imposed by the US and its ally South Korea, and that no change could be expected until and unless these were lifted. “The North Koreans live in more seclusion than we lived in,” Putin said. “They are more isolated than the Soviet Union under Stalin. The overwhelming number are prepared to die. This is not East Europe or East Germany. For any serious change in mindset, there needs to be rapprochement between the North and South.” Bush did not reply.
Putin’s response was different when Bush told him Iranian nuclear weapons technology was “scaring” Israel. “The military option stinks,” Bush claimed, referring to Israeli threats to attack Iran’s nuclear enrichment operations. “But we can’t take it off the table. [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon is thinking about the military option. If you or I were Sharon, we’d be thinking about the military option. Iranian nukes really scare the Israelis. Diplomacy must work. That’s an important point to keep in mind. If Sharon feels he needs to strike Iran, all hell will break loose. I’m not saying it will happen, only that the most likely military reactions will come from Israel.”
Putin is evasive. “But what will they target?” he asks. Left unsaid is that Putin conceded that Israeli nuclear weapons threatened Iran with US support, and that he accepted that US would support Israel to attack Iran’s counter-deterrent. Putin did not tell Bush that until and unless the US and Israel lifts the nuclear attack threat against Iran, there could be no reciprocal security although the Iranians, like the North Koreans, had told him exactly that.
This is telling with the hindsight of Putin’s acquiescence in Israel’s June 2025 attacks on Iran during a telephone call on June 13 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his response to Trump’s bombing of three nuclear technology sites on June 23. “Who says we should have done more,” Putin declared on June 20, “— what is more? Starting some kind of combat operations, or what?”
Twenty years earlier, on September 16, 2005, Bush had told Putin: “But we aren’t doing the targeting for Israel”. Putin knew then Bush was lying; Putin prevaricated. “But it’s not clear what the [Iranian] labs have, where they are. Cooperation with Pakistan still exists”, Putin went on, attempting to get Bush to respond on US military and intelligence assistance to Pakistan.
Bush was evasive. “I am concerned about Pakistan,” Putin said. “It is just a junta with nuclear weapons. It is no democracy, yet the West makes no criticism of it. Should talk about it.” Bush didn’t want to, so Putin asked Bush about the problem of terrorism spilling out of Afghanistan to attack both Russia and the US. “What should we do about the Taliban? I asked Clinton but never got back a straight answer.”
Bush was evasive again. “Armitage [Deputy Secretary of State] and George Tenet [CIA Director] have my full cooperation”. Putin replied: “Perhaps now, after your elections [November 2006], there will be fewer games.”
There weren’t.
Five weeks later, on October 29, 2005, the Pakistan-directed terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) bombed crowds in New Delhi, India, killing 67 and wounding more than 200.
RECORD OF PUTIN-BUSH MEETING, JUNE 16, 2001
Putin acknowledged that “there is no doubt they [Iran] want a nuclear weapon”; he did not explain the reason the Iranians had given him was Israel’s nuclear weapons. Instead, Putin assured Bush I will restrict missile technology to Iran” and had ordered a stop to exchange of nuclear weapons information between Russian and Iranian experts.
Here is Putin’s elaboration for Bush of the threat of US enlargement of NATO:
RECORD OF PUTIN-BUSH MEETING, SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
Putin referred to meetings he had had early in the year with Hassan Rouhani, then Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and later President of Iran (2013-2021). The Kremlin communiqué reported that “Russia continues to work with Iran in the nuclear energy sphere, Vladimir Putin announced. Russia and Iran have a whole range of joint projects both in the economic sphere and in the security sphere. A number of regional problems were also discussed at the meeting. The President noted that Russia and Iran have many joint interests in the Caspian region. The Russian President confirmed that he planned to visit Iran.”
Putin told the press: “The latest steps on Iran‘s behalf persuade us that Iran has no intention of building an atomic weapon. Consequently, we will continue to cooperate with Iran in all fields, including in nuclear energy. [Russia was] deeply convinced that the proliferation of nuclear arms on the planet does not contribute to security either for the region or the world. We hope that Iran will strictly respect all commitments it has made bilaterally with Russia and internationally.”
Putin greets Rouhani at the Kremlin on February 18, 2005. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/32806
Putin did not visit Iran until two years later, in September 2007.
Here is what Putin told Bush about his meeting with Rouhani:
In 2000 Putin had visited Pyongyang, North Korea, and met with Kim Jong-Il. The Kremlin announced: “The heads of state summed up their negotiations with a joint declaration, which expressed identical stances on many problems, including anti-missile defence. According to the declaration, Russia and North Korea are ready to establish urgent bilateral contact in the event either is threatened by an act of aggression, or a situation arises threatening peace and security, or whenever consultations and interaction are necessary. The parties spoke in favour of preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty of 1972. The Russian President told journalists after the negotiations that Mr Kim had reassured him that North Korea was only willing to use other countries’ missile technologies if it were offered booster rockets for peaceful space research. Mr Putin stressed that countries speaking of the threat posed by North Korea were duty bound to support the project.”
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/38435 According to the newly released US record, Putin had said “Kim Dae Jung of South Korea visited me this spring. I told him that I don’t trust Kim Jong Il, and I don’t, but there are things that can be done on the Korean Peninsula and the Russia and the United States should cooperate on it.”
In a press exchange with Kremlin reporters published by the Kremlin, Putin elaborated: “Another priority issue was security. It is common knowledge that the United States plans to deploy a national system of missile defence, and these plans are based on claims that some countries, including North Korea, pose a threat. We discussed this subject at length and very openly. I suppose you have been issued with the text of the joint statement, and you will see from it that the North Korean leader stressed that all missile programmes in his country were entirely peaceful.
In addition to the signed document, I can tell you that due to a high level of trust in our discussions, the North Korean head made the point that his country was ready to use exclusively rockets of other states, if they allow it to, for the peaceful exploration of space. I think this is a subject that calls for further discussions, and that such a statement came from the North Korean leader for the first time. I repeat, our negotiations were basically concerned with bilateral relations, and we want to give an impulse to the development of contacts between our two states. I have invited the leader of North Korea to visit Russia, and my invitation was accepted. We believe that visits by other North Korean statesmen to Russia could also be useful, including by members of Parliament, the foreign minister, the defence minister, as well as greater efforts by all our ministries in the areas concerned.
Question: Did he explain why he should be supplied with rockets?
Putin: Yes, he did. He said it was for the peaceful exploration of space. If some country is ready to provide North Korea with launch vehicles, it will be prepared to abandon its rocket research in general.
Question: Are we ready to supply them?
Putin: This will require some calculation. Why should Russia alone pay for the peaceful exploration of space? There must be other interested countries. If they claim that the programme threatens somebody else, perhaps some collective thought should be given to what has been said by the North Korean leader. If someone feels threatened, they can minimise these threats by supplying their launch vehicles. As I understand it, it was clearly stated that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is willing to avail itself of the services of other countries.
Question: Is Russia ready to be a political guarantor for North Korea in this case?
Putin: As regards any political guarantees for the Korean Peninsula, Russia is prepared to make what contribution it can to the solution of all problems in that part of the world. But we do not believe Russia’s efforts alone would be enough. What is needed is many-sided efforts, including those by the United States and other regional powers – China and Japan.”
Privately to Bush in 2005, Putin said:
RECORD OF PUTIN-BUSH MEETING, APRIL 6, 2008
In the third of the declassified presidential records, Putin’s priorities were the new nuclear attack threat which the Bush Administration was developing in their plans to install radar and missile units in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Here are excerpts:
The subsequent record shows that Bush ignored Putin’s concerns; three months later, on July 8, 2008, Rice signed an agreement in Prague for the radar installation to be part of the anti-missile defence system targeted at Moscow. Rice told the press it was “truly a landmark agreement” for allies facing a “common threat.” Majority public opposition among the Czechs continued, and the Obama Administration cancelled the Czech plan a year later. The missile batteries were then installed in Romania and Poland over Putin’s objections, beginning in 2011 and continued in Trump’s first term.
In his discussion of Iran’s nuclear technology plans, Putin told Bush he was withholding delivery of the S-300 missile system for defence against Israeli air attack as a condition for Iran’s agreement to agree to stop enrichment of uranium to weapons grade.
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