That is not true. Russia never tried to join NATO. Putin just had a talk in the beginning of his reign with NATO heads about joining, but it was never publicly debated in russia and never applied officially.

Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

After the orange revolution in 2004 in ukraine and the protests for more democracy in 2007 in Moscow, Putin was very angry and offended by his own citizens. By many journalists accounts, after those protests Putin developed a strong distrust and grudge against his own citizens and was most likely the tipping point of his authoritarian alignment to china.