Well if you are in war with a country, you should at least try to understanding their perspective from their viewpoint to understand their motivations. If you want to prevent more conflict at least..
The context is that Russia kept expanding for 13 years under the same dictator, and then this time is the straw that broke the camel's back. The trust was broken several times.
I don't really care to understand the mindset of a dictator. They want power, resources,or reputation out of it. There's not a lot of justified reasons to lead an assault that will cost millions of your citizen's lives.
I agree we shouldn't take the mindset of a dictator seriously, but we should take the threat of a superpower seriously. And we should show respect to a superpower as long as it's a superpower, because getting into conflict with a superpower can cause WW3.
I don't mean with that that I fully agree with their standpoint, but that we shouldn't fuck too much with them, because they might fuck with us.
Ultimately it's the weakest justification to allow Russia to do what it was always going to do anyway. There's not much to really discuss here unless you thought Russia was a credible place in the last 20 years.
That sounds like a prejudgment. You say Russia would have done this regardless of NATO's actions, but you don't know that. And you're downplaying the importance of NATO's actions and it's influence on Russia's actions.
The truth of the matter from Ukraine's perspective is that this never would have happened if Ukraine was a NATO member.
NATO hasn't moved aggressively on Russia.
The motivations for Russia and it's neighbours for their opinions on joining NATO are the same. Russia doesn't invade NATO members. That's why Russia's neighbours want to join and why Russia doesn't want them to.
I think it's because the US did sort of promise to block expansion, but then changed its mind and in now in hindsight it doesn't seem like they managed it very well but don't want to look bad.
True or not, earnest or not in inquiry, people will reflexively judge it all the same.