> I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO?
Yes. The trigger for current events was the possibility of closer cooperation with the EU, not anything NATO-related. Putin can't have a successful alternative to his regime. He can write off Finns and Lithuanians as being of different culture, but if their ethnic brothers Ukrainians built a successful country with wages multiple times higher than in Russia, then it would fatally undermine Putin's legitimacy. He doesn't want to end up like Saddam or Gaddafi.
Yes. The trigger for current events was the possibility of closer cooperation with the EU, not anything NATO-related. Putin can't have a successful alternative to his regime. He can write off Finns and Lithuanians as being of different culture, but if their ethnic brothers Ukrainians built a successful country with wages multiple times higher than in Russia, then it would fatally undermine Putin's legitimacy. He doesn't want to end up like Saddam or Gaddafi.