The $1 billion question is why isn’t Putin reaching out to create defensive treaties with his neighbors first. Why not a defense treaty with Ukraine?
Because your regime ran a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and overthrew a democratically elected government to put literal fascists in power. Here’s western media reporting on your friends
This is astonishingly stupid, you completely sidestepped the question. Let’s assume your point about 2014 is true, that’s still 23 years Russia did not form a treaty, which would have prevented the coup. That should have been the easiest, most obvious first move to counter NATO. Instead Russia is tearing itself apart trying to keep its claws dug into a little bit of Ukrainian territory.
In any scenario where you create an image of the west as some kind of empire overlord powerhouse that manipulates all global events, you make Russia and ex-Soviets look hopelessly stupid and incompetent.