Of course Russia is still a threat and NATO (while serving primarily American interests) helps to protect Eastern Europe countries from Russia. We should not forget that in 1939 USSR invaded into Finland, Baltic countries, Poland if I remember correctly. In 1968 they invaded Chekoslovakia. With NATO those countries probably feel safer.

Ukraine didn't have NATO bases - and lost its territory. This is a reminder for other countries.

You missed cause and consequence. Unprovoked expansion of NATO happened first. After years of warnings. Ukraine was in the line. That non-democratic coup was a step to NATO and inspired/supported by NATO members.

And after that Crimean people expressed that they don't like that by voting out of it.

So you are saying it is Ukraine's fault that NATO was expanding and it deserved a punishment? I cannot follow your logic.

Regarding referendum, it's results (95-96% vote for independence) are obviously falsified. There is nothing new: in 1938 Hitler also got 98-99% votes in occupied Austria [1]. Those 95% in Crimea as real as Hitler's.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,...

Germany/Austria in 1939 is a completely different case.

Let's take a look at the ethnic groups in Crimea - 2014 census:

Russians - 65%

Ukrainians - 15%

Crimean Tatars - 11%

Please note that, of the 15% of Ukrainians living there, most (60%) speak Russian as their first language.

We may argue if the 97% referendum result was rigged or not - we may never know.

But based on the above numbers I think that the people in Crimea really prefer to be part of Russia - because they are Russian!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea