These are sovereign countries who can join NATO whenever they desire so. Russia has no say, except to start an illegal aggressive war, which per a Soviet jurist

These are sovereign countries who can join NATO whenever they desire so. Russia has no say, except to start an illegal aggressive war, which per a Soviet jurist at the Nuremberg trials argued is the supreme international crime. Russia is a signatory to the U.N. Charter, in no possible reading of either the U.N. or NATO Charters is Russia threatened by NATO countries unless it attacks one of them first. That's a precondition of NATO responding. If you might attack first, NATO might be viewed as a threat, and therefore an even more legitimate reason to join NATO. Russia is also a signatory to the Budapest Memorandium in which it recognized Ukrainian independence. It's also a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. They said they wouldn't do exactly what they have done. Russia is a genocidal antagonistic ideological social group. The Kremlin published it's plan for a genocide, openly: What Russia should do with Ukraine? (Что Россия должна сделать с Украиной). This is not ambiguous language. It doesn't surprise me that, also in 1994, Poland insisted on NATO membership or else it would develop its own nuclear program. Why? Because they didn't trust Russia. Also, Putin said before 2014 that Ukraine joining NATO wasn't a concern of Russia's, so claiming it is now is absurd Russian propaganda. Russia has "Fatal Attraction" complex. It demands that Ukraine love them, or else Ukraine must die. All of them. It is a completely brain washed and demented culture now. This is what happens when tyranny is allowed to persist without a revolution. Now, an entire nation subservient to tyranny, demanding its neighbors must like it too under penalty of extermination for having the courage to tell Russia to fuck off.