Be careful what frames you apply to complex situations, if you really want to understand them.
As Catherine the Great said, "The only way I can protect the borders is to expand them! The situation of Russia is there are few natural boundaries. That's why central Asia has such a history of hordes sweeping across it. As opposed to the West of Europe, with rivers, mountain ranges, channels, seas, etc, keeping the various kingdoms relatively stable.
The Russians fought two very brutal wars to hold onto Chechnya, after the break up of the Soviet Union, but they let Ukraine go. Obviously because it is too large and too chaotic. For those of us reading the news for the last fifty years, it is evident there was no way to put our military industrial complex back in the bag. So it has been pushing Nato east, with lots of promises that don't make our news coverage and crying loudly when the Russians react.
Remember the Russians were attacked by both Napoleon and Hitler and they haven't forgotten. Consider how much the various wars this country has engaged in and how the public memory is built around them, with the in-between times pretty fuzzy.
It should be noted that two of the architects of this plan, Brzezinski and Kissinger, both have started having second thoughts as to the long term consequences. Even if there is no nuclear war, do we think the world wide consequences will just fade away? Our news like to brag about how the whole world is treating Russia as the pariah, but China, India, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Mexico are some of the more notable abstainers and even Saudi Arabia has been digging in its heals. Meanwhile the entire third world, aka, everyone with even slightly dark skin, is pointing out the overwhelming hypocrisy of the US and Europe clutching their pearls over people who look like them, while we can bomb, drone, overthrow any number of people and countries not of our color and it fades into little more than a shrug.
Remember a lot of those people are refugees in Europe. What if they suddenly find rocket propelled grenades easy to acquire? The police are going to need more than flak jackets and tactical vehicles and the rich will need more than armored suv's and private security.
