Russia was the one threatening to shoot and shooting people
At the same time, since Putin came to power, Russia has been running massive army reforms and increasing the number of soldiers and equipment on European borders. With each passing day, European militaries were becoming weaker and Russian military grew stronger. Russian "security concerns" are nothing but a cover story for the eventual decision to take advantage of military balance gradually tipping in their favor.
This is like someone saying they will start locking their doors, so someone else says they were forced to rob and murder them.
It's absurd from any perspective except for warped "don't believe your own eyes, ears and thoughts" Orwellian propaganda.
All of these analogies break down because there is no real world equivalent to a purely defense action like locking your doors.
The idea that NATO and the US especially only engage in defensive military actions is what requires an insane level of reality denial.
At any rate, Im not even trying to claim Russia has a moral high ground, just that the situation was completely predictable. At best, it was like putting your hand in a cage with the rabid dog. You can make a moral point that the dog shouldn't bite, but it is still idiotic to ignore the barking, snapping, and foaming at the mouth.
Oh? I'd ask for evidence but I think you're just misunderstanding what NATO is. Just because the US is part of NATO does not mean that anything it does is automatically an action of NATO.
Also now somehow russia is not full of human people but has the intelligence of a rabid animal with a disease affecting its brain and somehow their borders were crossed with aggression?
I'm guessing there is no explanation or evidence coming for any of these claims because if you had it, you would have put it in your comment.
The analogy with the dog is that you know exactly what will happen, not the biology.
What claim do you want evidence for? That Russia was willing to invade Ukraine and kill hundreds of thousands? I think the evidence speaks for itself. They were willing to do it.
Maybe we should start with the basics. Do you realize you made claims? Do you realize you gave no evidence?
Russia was threatened by EU actually. The initial 2013 crisis, Crimea / Donbas invasions happened as a consequence of EU association agreement which was pulling Ukraine away from Russia.
Russia isn't threatened in the sense that NATO will invade Russia proper - the nukes pretty much guarantee that can't happen. NATO / EU are "invading" what Putin considers to be Russia's sphere of influence. In case of Ukraine, Putin plans/planned to unite Russia, Ukraine and Belarus into one country - the creeping integration of Belarus serves as a template.
Most of the eastern Europe entered NATO without an incident. Baltics is closer to Russia's power centers (St. Petersburg and Moscow) than Ukraine is. Finland and Sweden entered NATO without incidents. Entering NATO was undeniably beneficial for these countries, since it has a very good safety record of protecting its members. Russia tends to invade countries which didn't yet make it to NATO.
I agree NATO membership is beneficial for basically all its members. It provides a great deal of security to be under the US umbrella. NATO aspirations did not work out well for Georgia.
My point was that it was entirely predictable. If you point a gun at someone else, you are likely to get shot. Especially if they tell you repeatedly that they will shoot you if you point a gun at them.