They have asked to be a part of nato twice around 2000th and were both times rejected.

NATO is not something you can just apply to on a whim. The path for a membership was there: e.g. there were some joint exercises, etc. Obviously they also need political integration as well.

Russia actually have been a member of Council of Europe (PACE, etc.) since 1996 but it was expelled in 2022. If they had a good record in Council of Europe they could really go for NATO membership eventually.

	▲	RuslanL 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Ok, about the path you describe: how can one join a military exercise without a prior green light for that? And speaking about the political integration: remember that Turkey is in nato, so it does not need more political integration than Russia had in early 2000th. What happened is that nato realized that if Russia joins, it will loose the reason to exist (i.e. if the old enemy joins the alliance what is the need for such an alliance anymore?) So nato bureaucrats understood that they will loose well-paying positions and rejected even initial talks.