Newly detailed accounts of Russia's early attempts to join NATO paint the alliance's refusal as a turning point that helped sour relations for decades — bad news for anyone hoping the West and Moscow can rebuild trust.

• Putin pushed to join NATO in his first years in office, and Gorbachev and Yeltsin had raised the idea before him.
• After Washington brushed him off, he went straight to NATO's headquarters in Brussels, where staff began working through the paperwork.
• The US found out, stepped in, and killed the effort.
• The reasoning was blunt: Russia was simply too big and too powerful, and letting it in would have turned the alliance into a US-Russia partnership with Europe pushed to the sidelines.
• Washington was not willing to hand Moscow that much say over Western decisions.

Outlook: This history is becoming a central argument in debates over how the Ukraine war started and what any future security deal with Russia should look like.