Russia did want to be part of NATO. That's why they joined NATO Partnership for Peace [1] and cooperated the other ways. Of course, the formal application does

Russia did want to be part of NATO. That's why they joined NATO Partnership for Peace [1] and cooperated the other ways. Of course, the formal application doesn't exist, since countries of that size and importance usually don't apply officially to something unless they already have an agreement that it's just a formality. They would just look silly if the applied and got rejection. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace