> Months ago Russia asked that Ukraine and Georgia be excluded from NATO. We ignored him.
I don't think this holds up to scrutiny for a few reasons. Ukraine was not invited to join NATO, Zelensky's government fearing the escalation of Russia's incursions into the East started the process of asking for admission last June. Russian units have been operating in the East for years, and they took Crimea. If you read Putin's speech from early this week he laid out a revanchist case for recapturing old Soviet/Russian Imperial territory. He even laid claim to the whole of Ukraine, failing to note that the western portion only became part of the USSR because of WWII and had previously been part of other political entities. He's been carving up neighbors for years, so it's no wonder that the neighboring state might want to join NATO.
I don't think this holds up to scrutiny for a few reasons. Ukraine was not invited to join NATO, Zelensky's government fearing the escalation of Russia's incursions into the East started the process of asking for admission last June. Russian units have been operating in the East for years, and they took Crimea. If you read Putin's speech from early this week he laid out a revanchist case for recapturing old Soviet/Russian Imperial territory. He even laid claim to the whole of Ukraine, failing to note that the western portion only became part of the USSR because of WWII and had previously been part of other political entities. He's been carving up neighbors for years, so it's no wonder that the neighboring state might want to join NATO.