1 Just because you can't seem to grasp it, doesn't mean it's irrelevant. NATO have been warned for years by many strategists not to try to include Ukraine. The notion that NATO exists just to prevent Russia from invading them is risible and akin to saying the US only has nuclear weapons because Russia has.
2 A puppet Ukraine would obviously be the buffer for Russia rather than having NATO tanks right on the Russian borders. If NATO was to attack Russia across the European plain in a conventional war then their having to first transverse Ukraine would give Russian troops more time to prepare defences.
3 Looks like they might get their wish now
4 America's problem with Cuba was they thought it was going to be the first domino and that many other geographically close to US countries (within nuclear missile range at the time) would come under similar influence. The fact taht technology now has nuclear missiles able to reach anywhere on the planet made it a crisis of its time that has since been overtaken
5 The former and current governments of Ukraine were both democratically elected afaik. Both had/have overseen internal conflicts within Ukraine where innocent civilians have been killed, ever before that c**t Putin's tanks rolled across the border. It's a bit silly to try paint one as a purely benevolent regime and the other as purely evil. The truth is in between.
But Putin was wrong wrong wrong to invade and it has polarised the situation dramatically.
6 The Ukraine of itself posed little or no threat to Russia. NATO in Ukraine right on the border of Russia is a completely different situation though. And anyone with a shred of intelligence knows that. Unfortunately for the Russian people, Putin has gone all-in and it's looking like he's not going to win long term
