It is clearly absurd for Russia to fear NATO because both parties have peacemakers aka nuclear weapons. The threat of nuclear retaliation keeps both in check. Any agreement on the NATO side to not use nuclear weapons is a defacto dissolution of NATO for countries that do not have nukes.
Russia has nothing to fear because NATO is a loyal customer of fossil fuels. There is no political, cultural, economical basis for attacking Russia. Really the only argument in favour of getting rid of Russia is to get rid of an enemy with nuclear weapons and that can't be done through conventional warfare, you're going to need to slowly let the economy crumble over decades until it loses nuclear capabilities. If those things are happening right now, you should be complaining about the man in charge e.g. Putin he ran the country to the ground. At best this could mean that Putin is a NATO puppet. The more we assume that NATO is a threat to Russia the more absurd the reasoning must become. If Putin is a NATO puppet then why does he start a war against a NATO aligned country (by that I mean Ukraine wants to join NATO)? We are now running into a irreconcilable contradiction. NATO could either bait Russia into war with Ukraine to justify expanding NATO or it could bait Russia into fighting a conventional war with the expectation that Russia loses the war and then hopefully loses its nuclear capabilities from the damage caused to the economy.
The problem with imagining that NATO is a threat is that it would be winning so hard, it is unbelievable how well things have been going for NATO as if they were orchestrating the entire thing from start to finish. I don't believe in such a coincidence that is effectively a conspiracy theory.
No, it is much easier. Russia doesn't consider NATO a threat which is why they believe they can get away with openly fighting a war in Ukraine. Western countries denied the war until the last minute. If anything they were too soft and lenient, maybe even submissive towards russian interests. The German Energiewende for example was a strategy that is utterly dependent on russian natural gas to get to 80% renewable production as gas is easier to throttle than coal and more flexible and emits less CO2. Putin is inflicting a lot of pain to Europe.
>hearing NATO countries like Poland and my own Romania fearing a Russian invasion is truly comical.
What? That just means NATO isn't a threat and Putin isn't a NATO puppet. I personally think that Putin being a NATO puppet is comical.
NATO is a hostile military alliance to Russia - one that is far more powerful than it in every way. To claim that Russia doesn't fear NATO, or that it has no reason to, is simply absurd.
NATO has a habit of involving itself anywhere the USA has an interest. They were "justified" in intervening against Saddam in his war with Kuwait, but of course when Saudi Arabia invades Yemen, that's not our problem, and we can still sell them "defensive weapons". When a group of 20 terrorists led and financed by a Saudi noble attacks the USA, it's the country where he was staying at the time that NATO must invade, and remain in for 20 years.
Even for Iraq 2, while NATO itself wasn't involved, several NATO states were, not just the USA - even ignoring the fact that, given their overwhelming military superiority, the lines between the USA and NATO are quite blurry.
So yes, the claims that Russia is denazifying Ukraine are utter bullshit. The claims that Ukraine has no legitimacy as a nation are utter bullshit. The claims that Russia has Ukrainians', or even Russian ethnics' best interests at heart are utter bullshit.
But so are NATO's claims that it is a purely defensive alliance and that Russia has nothing to fear from them.
It's also important to note that, had territorial expansion been the biggest aim for Putin, he has much easier, and richer, neighbour's to attack. Ukraine is impossible to hold after a hostile invasion, and Putin can't be idiotic enough not to understand that he can't control a country of 50M people. Why not attack Mongolia if he really wanted more land?
And if you think it's absurd for Russia to fear NATO, hearing NATO countries like Poland and my own Romania fearing a Russian invasion is truly comical.