Think about it that way: Ukraine was not going to join NATO any time soon while having significant chunk of its territory occupied by nuclear superpower. NATO s

Think about it that way: Ukraine was not going to join NATO any time soon while having significant chunk of its territory occupied by nuclear superpower. NATO states knew it, Ukraine knew it (Zelensky's own election campaign was along the lines "You won't take us?! Fuck you NATO we won't even apply then!"), and _Russia themselves absolutely knew it_. Also, Ukraine offered to commit to neutrality multiple times during peace negotiations, but Russia apparently wasn't interested. Now, of course, you could reasonably disagree and continue pressing the narrative that, no, Russia has all the reasons to be concerned. However, in fact there is a Russian neighbor that shares a land border with Russia that is currently in the process of actually joining NATO for real - Finland. And what do Russia do about that? Invades them? No. Maybe a naval blockade and 100k military personnel "on exercise" near their border? No, nothing. In fact, Russia is so unconcerned that according to satellite images they have recently transferred bunch of personnel and equipment from a military base near border with Finland[0]... to fight in Ukraine. It is almost like Russia is not _that_ afraid of NATO and is actually pursuing some other goals in Ukraine... Reasonable person may even conclude that Russia was lying and faking its concern about NATO expansion after consulting the map and determining that for some reason NATO is still not nuking Moscow from Latvia that has been a member for some time now... Go figure! [0]: https://yle.fi/news/3-12523695 https://yle.fi/news/3-12523695