UK officials believed Nato expansion “would provoke [the] Russians” if a large group of European states joined the military organisation, declassified files from 1997 show.
A March 1997 briefing for prime minister John Major outlined UK support for a “small first group” of countries to join the Nato alliance.
“Too many at once would strain Nato structures, antagonise Russia ”, read the briefing, which was intended for Major’s upcoming meeting with Nato secretary general Javier Solana. Further decisions on which states would join and when “would provoke Russians”, it added. The meeting took place as Nato, in the face of strong Russian opposition, was considering enlarging to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland and perhaps Slovenia and Romania. The first three countries were invited by Nato to join in July 1997, and they did so in 1999. A further 11 European states went on to join the military alliance by 2020. The same briefing for Major stated that then Russian president Boris Yeltsin was “likely to press key allies for assurances that Nato will not admit Baltics, Ukraine ”. “Will get no change from us”, the briefing added. Even in 1997, many officials in the US administration under Bill Clinton were already in favour of the Baltics states joining. This was especially controversial as the three states share land borders with Russian territory.
John Kerr, Britain’s ambassador in Washington wrote “the Americans have promised to help them [Baltic states] prepare for membership” and “Many in the Administration (including the Pentagon) think the Balts will indeed join Nato one day”.
He added: “They see this as only a matter of time and careful management of Russia.” RELATED UK knew Nato expansion could lead to war with Russia By contrast, the UK Ministry of Defence has posted hundreds of times, especially on social media platform X, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was “unprovoked”.
“Blatant provocation” is how Nikolai Afanasievsky, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, described talk of Nato admitting former Soviet republics, in a meeting in February 1997 with UK ambassador in Moscow, Jeremy Greenstock. Greenstock tried to reassure Afanasievsky that “Nato had no intention to admit FSU [former Soviet Union] members at this stage”. His “at this stage” comment was technically true, but seven years later, in 2004, the Baltic states had all joined. Nato enlargement to territories of the former Soviet Union including the Baltic states was “a neuralgic point” for the Russians, UK officials at Nato informed the Foreign Office in March 1997. “The most difficult issue was Yeltsin’s anxiety about possible [sic] accession of Ukraine, the Baltic states and other states of the Former Soviet Union”.
The following month, Yeltsin wrote to Major saying: “Our negative attitude to Nato expansion plans remains unchanged. Implementation of those plans would be the biggest mistake of the West in all the post-war period”. One particular priority for Moscow was “exclusion of deployment on a permanent basis near Russia of Nato battle formations”.
‘Russian fears were real’
“Russian fears were real”, Major told Dutch prime minister Wim Kok in a discussion in The Hague on Nato enlargement in January 1997. “This had been clear from his own contacts with Yeltsin and others in the past”, Major added, according to the write-up of the meeting. When Major met Solana in March 1997 the latter referred to “Russians fears about Nato troops and equipment moving eastwards”. Russian foreign minister Primakov “had more or less begged him [Solana] for help in giving the Russians reassurance about Nato forces not moving eastwards”.
Earlier, in December 1996, Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin had told Major in private: “Russia could not stop Nato enlarging, but this would create a fragile situation which could explode”.
Similarly, a Foreign Office paper drawn up in December 1995 noted “the depth of hostility to the principle of enlargement” by Russia. It said the UK “should address Russian sensitivities” about this, including “to explain Nato’s role and activities to a wider Russian public through an enhanced information effort”. This was at a time when UK officials believed the first phase of enlargement should be “small” and only consider Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
Earlier that year, in March 1995, the UK’s ambassador to the US, Robin Renwick, informed the Foreign Office of the understanding in Washington that “there was a widespread psychological and intellectual perception in Moscow that Nato was a real threat”.
This was well-known to the British prime minister. In May 1995, Major said in a meeting with his Irish counterpart, John Bruton, that he “thought that their fundamental fear was of encirclement”, referring to the Russians. He added that, compared to EU membership for the central European states “for the Russians, Nato had a much more threatening symbolism and political resonance… The Baltics were particularly difficult, with extreme sensitivity for Russia. It would be very hard to have a Nato border directly against Russia”. Thus Major argued to take enlargement “slowly” and “develop a unique relationship with Russia, which took account of its special size and strategic weight”. RELATED Blair and Major reassured Russia about Nato expansion declassifieduk.org/tag/tony-blair/">Tony Blair became prime minister in May 1997, Britain sought to develop close relations with Russia, especially after Vladimir Putin became prime minister in August 1999.
Blair’s officials believed they could form a “new partnership” with Russia, and that Moscow would gradually acquiesce in the enlargement of Nato. However, Russians fears of enlargement barely ceased. “Enlargement is still very neuralgic” to Russia, wrote John Goulden, the UK’s top official at Nato, in February 2000. “Public opinion believed this would lead to Russia’s political isolation in Europe” with one Russian official saying it “amounted to Nato closing Peter the Great’s window to the West”. One reason for Moscow’s opposition to enlargement at this time was Blair’s war in Kosovo in 1999, which involved bombing Serbia , Moscow’s ally, and expanding Western influence in eastern Europe after failing to secure UN security council authorisation.
A Foreign Office brief for Blair’s meeting with Nato secretary general George Robertson in February 2000 noted: “Russian opposition to Nato expansion has become even more hard-line as a result of Kosovo”.
However, it wasn’t just Kosovo, but US/UK policies towards Iraq, and their bombing of the country in 1998, also without UN authorisation, that angered Russia. This was explicitly outlined by Tim Barrow, private secretary to foreign secretary Robin Cook, who wrote to No.10 in September 1999 saying: “Russia’s relationship with the West has recently taken a pounding. The Russians found US/UK policies in relation to Iraq and Kosovo particularly hard to swallow.”
“The underlying reason for this disquiet (which is genuine) is a feeling that the United States and Nato are a law unto themselves. The idea that the West takes little account of Russian interests and that the process of Nato enlargement is intended to constrain Russia still further.”
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