🇺🇸🇷🇺⚡️ — NEW: Declassified trannoscripts reveal direct exchanges between Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, and Condoleezza Rice over Iran’s nuclear program and Moscow’s influence in a 2008 meeting.

➡️ Putin said Russia would curb its assistance to Iran, including limiting missile-related support, and argued that if Tehran were supplied with nuclear fuel, it would have no legitimate reason to enrich uranium itself.

➡️ He then stated bluntly, "There is no doubt they want a nuclear weapon."

➡️ Bush praised Russia’s leverage: "He took the lead on Iran, and I followed. It was the right thing to do."

➡️ Putin called the Iranians "quite nuts" and Bush called them "nutty" when it came to arms sales and their pressure tactics. However, Putin noted after a visit to Iran, "They may be crazy in their ideology, but they’re intellectuals… They are not primitive people."

🇺🇸🇷🇺⚡️ — In declassified trannoscripts from a 2008 meeting, Vladimir Putin warned George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice that admitting Ukraine into NATO would ensure a prolonged confrontation with Russia:

I'd like to emphasize accession to NATO of a country like Ukraine will create, for the long term, a field of conflict for you and us—long-term confrontation.

Seventeen million Russians live in Ukraine, a third of the population. Ukraine is a very complex state. This is not a nation built in a natural manner. It's an artificial country created back in Soviet times. It's populated by people with very different mindsets. If you go to western Ukraine, you'll see villages where the only spoken language is Hungarian and people wear those bonnets. In the east, people are wearing suits, ties, and big hats.

NATO is perceived by a large part of the Ukrainian population as a hostile organization.

This creates the threat of military bases and new military systems being deployed in the proximity of Russia. It created uncertainties and threats for us.

What is the meaning of Ukrainian membership in NATO? What benefit is there for NATO and the U.S.? There can be only one reason for it, and that would be to cement Ukraine's status in the Western world, and that would be the logic. I don't think it's the right logic; I'm trying to comprehend.

And given the divergent views of areas of the population on NATO membership, the country could just split apart. I always said there's a certain pro-Western part and a certain pro-Russia part. Now the power there is held by the pro-Western leaders. As soon as they came to power, they split within themselves. The political activity there fully reflects the attitudes of the population.

The issue there is not accession to NATO but ensuring the self-sufficiency of Ukraine. Also, their economy should be strengthened. Seventy percent of the population is against NATO.

What we are against is Ukraine's accession to NATO, but in any case we should wait until a majority of the population is in favor, then let them accede, not vice versa.

🇻🇪⚡️ — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro celebrated Christmas in Caracas' San Agustin neighborhood and showed off his moves.