Are you aware of the Monroe doctrine? Cuban missile crisis? Can you imagine the US reaction if Russia placed missiles in Canada or Mexico?

Mearsheimer explains the perceived threat aspect very well: it doesn't matter what YOU, the Americans or any outside observer thinks. What does matter is what the Russians think, and they've made their thinking on having Ukraine be part of NATO very clear.

Russia has bordered two NATO counties for decades. There were no Russia threatening missiles in Ukraine.

Putin is probably genuinely threatened by the prospect of Ukraine being a prosperous democracy and his own people saying why do we have to live under tyrany then, but that's a different thing.

No, Putin is actually bothered by the presence of NATO bases designed to attack and invade Russia being established directly on his borders, within minutes of flight time to Moscow. He also had huge issues with Ukraines' NATO-funded biological warfare program.

Haven't you been paying attention?

The Russians were, as they made clear on multiple occasions, threatened by NATO moving into Ukraine and potentially placing missiles close to the Russian heartland.

They lie constantly. Just some excusese to take their empire back.

So Putin's solution to this apparent dilemma was to start a war that has directly resulted in the expansion NATO? If NATO was a problem before then surely a bigger NATO is a bigger problem.

It sounds like Putin doesn't care much about Russia's security and he's only making things worse.

Why would NATO want to antagonize or threaten Russia directly? That's a serious question because neither the US nor Western Europe had any desire to start any direct or indirect conflict with Russia since 1991..

> missiles close to the Russian heartland.

Any factual evidence? In any case you do realize there are Russian missiles in Kaliningrad so following the same logic you would agree that Poland/Germany/Sweden etc. have a legitimate right to invade it to demilitarize and "denazify" it (in this case of course for real because Russia at this point is literally a fascist state, it ticks all the boxes after all) following the same "logic"?

>Why would NATO want to antagonize or threaten Russia directly?

Because the PNAC/CNAC plans for the economic survival of the USA and its western allies depends on the defeat of Russia and the balkanization of its resources?

Haven't you been paying attention? The PNAC/CNAC oligarchs and their military junta have made it quite clear for decades that they want what Russia's got...

> economic survival of the USA and its western allies

Don't be silly. Russia is a sidenote from the perspective of the west. Especially the US, they'd much rather focus on the pacific and their internal stuff.

I know Russians tend to be extremely paranoid about everyone being out to get them but that's more of an internalized issue due to historical reasons and the general tendency of blaming external powers for all of their domestic issues...

Tell me you haven't been paying attention to the oligarchs of the PNAC without telling me you haven't been paying attention to the oligarchs of the PNAC ..

The USA is nothing without enemies.

The only ones installing missiles anywhere are Russians, most recently moving nuclear missiles into an unstable dictatorship in Belarus, right on EU and NATO border.