Putin claims that the expansion of NATO drove him to the invasion of Ukraine. Does that even make sense?
Put aside, for the moment, the fact that NATO expansion happened many years ago, without much complaint from the Russian government. The pertinent question is, would it be logical to respond to NATO expansion by invading a country that wasn’t included in the expansion, and had little hope of joining NATO?
Of course not. The invasion had nothing to do with NATO, and everything to do with Putin’s belief that Ukraine is properly part of Russia. He just wanted to be a latter-day Catherine the Great. Alas for him.