[loourr]

Yes Ukraine is a sovereign nation but NATO is not. The US and Russia have an agreement that NATO will not encroach onto Russias border which allowing Ukraine to join (a US decision) would be a violation of.

It's akin to arguing that Cuba joining a Russian military alliance and re-installing ICBMs on their territory is totally fine because Cuba is a sovereign nation and can do whatever they want.

[eternalban]

There is no such agreement. Produce the documents.

Also the Russian demands (per their 2 'treaty' proposals) is for restoration of geopolitical map to 1997. It is true (and interesting) that Western press tries to formulate this as "about Ukraine" but the documents (which are plain English) clearly demand a strategic retreat and restoration of spheres of influence between great powers.

From the Russian perspective, it is certainly true that having forward nuclear capable installations bordering Russia renders Russian options for nuclear retaliation null and void. This is something Putin spent a great deal of time explaining a few years ago: it disrupts the Russia MAD protocols and thus is "dangerous" (per Putin) in that Russians seeing (nuclear capable) stuff flying over from across the border have no way to determine if the attack is conventional or nuclear. So what Russians want is really a long enough window for the MAD protocols to be meaningful. TLDR: Russia believes these installations create the opportunity for decapitating Nuclear First Strike by NATO on Russia.

I think this is the biggest failing of the reporting class regarding this (imho fairly serious) development: framing this as about Ukraine whereas it is strictly about great power balance. The subtext here is that our chattering classes no longer consider Russia a "great power" and thus dismiss those concerns. The most sensible approach for Russians is to place equivalent hardware in Cuba and Venezuela, and equalize the "first strike" insecurities. If West then smashes the Russian installations, then I suppose Russians can go ahead and do the same to everything NATO "post 1997" in "former Warsaw Pact" nations.

[loourr]

Great analysis, I agree with your points.