Putin's (I'd say Russian) motivations were stated open and clear in 2021: we want NATO to stop expanding to the East. We asked West to discuss this thing and put an end to NATO expansion.
All of our demands were declined in the most obnoxious manner possible: "You mean nothing, we don't want to listen to your concerns, go away and die silently in your Siberia"
> Just like I don’t get veto power over your friendships, Russia does not get to decide who other sovereign nations get to be friends with.
NATO is an aggressive military alliance. Ukraine could be friends with EU and US and not be a part of NATO.
> The NATO excuse doesn’t explain the invasion and partial annexation of Georgia in 2008, either.
Do you really know anything about what happened in 2008? Honestly, not from the media and not from Wikipedia. Because regurgitating the easy-peasy propaganda from media is not interesting in any way.
How can you be so sure that it was Russia that "invaded" Georgia in 2008? How comes that although Russia beat the Georgian military force so easily that we could capture the whole Georgia, we didn't do it? There was nothing to stop us in 2008. How comes that "greedy Putin" didn't take Tbilisi and everything with it?
All of our demands were declined in the most obnoxious manner possible: "You mean nothing, we don't want to listen to your concerns, go away and die silently in your Siberia"