The NATO gang was busy waging wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to bother much with threatening Russia from Ukraine's border. Besides, Russian relations with the west were relatively cordial until Hillary/NATO destroyed Libya.

As with Georgia the intent was to put the country on a 1-2 decade long path to article 5 protections (PFP) where NATO could gradually ramp up its ability to militarily threaten Russia but was under no obligation to actually defend against Russian aggression.