The Bush-Putin Transcripts--Jun 16, 2001
The National Security Archives, Docid:34685207 released 23 December 2025
The National Security Archives, The Bush-Putin Transcripts
Dear Readers,
Over the past few days there has been a lot of commentary in news outlets and on social media about the Bush-Putin Transcripts 2001-2008 that have been released by the National Security Archives on 23 December 2025. A lot of it has focused on Putin’s view of Ukraine and other states that regained their independence from the Soviet Union as well as Russia’s strategic goals.
I’ll be posting transcripts from 2001, 2005 and 2008. This is the first document for your perusal. The introduction and description have been drafted by the National Security Archives and reveal how the government would like the documents to be understood.
General Introduction
The verbatim transcripts of Vladimir Putin’s meetings and telephone calls with U.S. president George W. Bush from 2001 to 2008 opened to the public yesterday as the result of a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the National Security Archive.
The documents show that Russian president Putin was Bush’s close ally in 2001 with their shared anti-terrorism focus, Putin’s on Chechnya and Bush’s on Al-Qaeda, to the point that Bush exclaimed “You’re the type of guy I like to have in the foxhole with me.”
But by the end of Bush’s time in office, Putin had aired his severe criticisms of U.S. policies such as invading Iraq and expanding NATO in multiple venues including the famous Munich speech in 2007. Bush complained in a 2008 telcon that Putin “was very effective when you want to be in terms of being tough and hard” so please be “gentlemanly” in his comments at the NATO summit in Bucharest, so that Bush could visit Putin in Sochi afterwards.
Today’s publication includes three of the most consequential Putin-Bush conversations, from 2001, 2005, and their last meeting in 2008.
Memorandum of Conversation. Subject: Restricted Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Dated: 16 June 2001
Released: 23 December 2025
Description:
In this first personal meeting at the Brno Castle in Slovenia Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush express respect for each other and desire to establish a close relationship.
Putin tells Bush about his religious beliefs and the story of his cross that survived a fire at his dacha.
In a short one-on-one meeting they cover all the most important issues of U.S.-Russian relations such as strategic stability, ABM treaty, nonproliferation, Iran, North Korea and NATO expansion.
Bush tells his Russian counterpart that he believes Russia is part of the West and not an enemy, but raises a question about Putin’s treatment of a free press and military actions in Chechnya.
Putin prefers to talk about the need to combat terrorism and security threats. He is assertive and dominates the conversation, deflecting Bush’s question on press restrictions. He gives Bush a brief history lecture on (his interpretation) of the breakup of the Soviet Union: “What really happened? Soviet good will changed the world, voluntarily. And Russians gave up thousands of square kilometers of territory, voluntarily. Unheard of. Ukraine, part of Russia for centuries, given away. Kazakhstan, given away. The Caucasus, too. Hard to imagine, and done by party bosses.”
Putin raises a question of Russian NATO membership and says Russia feels “left out.”
Source: National Security Archive FOIA lawsuit, George W. Bush Library
Nothing has changed for putin. What is astonishing is that we would have been able to see all this very early but somehow the west didn’t pay much attention. It was all in front of our eyes decades ago. Obviously I can speak only from my own perspective.