Exactly. I think it's worth considering that people are using "threatened" in two slightly but meaningfully different ways in these discussions. It seems superficially reasonable to defend yourself militarily when "threatened"; but that's only true if that threat is military. However, it seems pretty implausible that either Putin's regime was threatened, or that they thought they were militarily threatened. However, as you point out, it's a lot more plausible they feared cultural contamination.

Putin's regime wanted heavy-handed control over its neighbors; and the Maidan revolution demonstrated not only that this control wasn't as strong as it appeared, but also that it might be possible to break free from that oppression for others too, including perhaps Russian's. That example was the threat from which Putin was "defending" himself.

As much as Chomsky's well-reasoned talks are worth respect, he never really addressed that well. Putin's defense vs. the NATO threat was about as reasonable as a colonial power's "defense" vs. their subject's freedom; and it's also being executed about as reasonably, too. But to hear Chomsky describe it this is basically irrelevant; anything opposed to American overreach is reasonable - even when it's clearly not, and it's not even clear there's any overreach in the matter at hand.