The agreement literally says "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" on page 3. What is fuzzy about the wording?

Just read the thread, your quote says nothing about going into nuclear war because of anyone breaching the treaty.

EDIT: and wiki wording is unclear whether the treaty applies for conventional war. That's all I meant by "fuzzy"

How can the treaty be read to not apply to conventional war? Are you saying that one can invade Ukraine and still "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine"?

If you want to find a way to not defend an ally, you'll always find one :)

NATO treaty itself does not talk about rapid response forces, joint bases and so on. All of that comes beyond the treaty. What stops key states from retreating back to basic treaty and then finding an excuse when Article 5 comes? E.g. if Russia comes as non-marked „rebels“?

But there was no defense alliance between NATO and Ukraine, right?

Maybe NATO has also weak wording in the treaty itself. So ask yourself - why did Ukraine want so badly to be accepted into it? Why is Russia opposing NATO expansion so much?

Budapest treaty is pretty damn close to defence alliance in it's wording.

Why did Baltic states or Poland wanted into NATO so much? It's one more treaty you can show to media when shit hits the fan. One more treaty your supporters can use debating governments for help.

In reality, if Russia attacks a NATO member, it won't be automatic full-on NATO response. It will still be debates. But certain people will be much more uncomfortable saying „no we won't defend NATO allies“. Yet some will still say it.

Russia wants it's own NATO, with black jack and hookers. And countries joining the real NATO obviously won't join theirs.