60 key players have been invited to the capital of Romania: heads of states and governments, heads of the EU, General Secretary of the UN… Russian President is also expected to come. The Russian head of state has been always invited after 1997 when Boris Yeltsin signed the Basic agreement with NATO. However, he never attended the NATO summits after that. In May 2002 Vladimir Putin visited the base Pratica-di-Mare to make a joint statement about the new relationship of NATO and Russia.  But then followed the expansion of NATO to Baltic seas, and “colored” revolutions, and oil and gas boom and Russia’s “standing up from her knees”…      

“We went risky when we invited Putin to Bucharest. He is capable of spoiling the summit” such was a joke by one of the high ranking officials. 

Deep down, the NATO members have a hope that anti-western rhetoric by Moscow was made with campaigning purposes and now it’s time to come back to serious matters. 

The main intrigue of the summit goes about whether Georgia and Ukraine will get the “plan of actions for membership”. The alliance members split on the point. The USA, Canada and Central and Eastern European countries are supportive of the application by Kiev and Tbilisi. But Germany and other Western Europe states comprehend it would eliminate the chance for bettering relations with Russia, the chance appearing after passing the power from Putin to Medvedev.

The tone of the public statements on the summit’s eve was far from looking like making compliments. The NATO members have published so called “package of parallel actions” which they suggested last year to the Kremlin to release the Moscow’s concerns about Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. The publication was made to demonstrate that Moscow lacks good will.   

The topic of placement of American anti-missile elements in Czechia and Poland was shifted from Bucharest to Sochi. George Bush will come to Vladimir Putin, to his residence in Bocharov Ruchei. “We shall be speaking with Americans, not with Czechs or Polish” explained Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian Representative in NATO. He also noted that big European countries stay aloof from this discussion.