Here's France24's take in 2014 when Ukraine voted to abandon "non-aligned" status: https://www.france24.com/en/20141223-ukraine-parliament-vote...Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its support for the separatist insurgency appear partly rooted in fears that the Western military alliance could expand its presence on the Russian border.
My personal opinion is that these events in 2019 were the last straw for Putin. He probably made the decision to invade early in 2020....but had to pause those plans while the whole world grappled with COVID. It then took them into mid-2021 to get the ball rolling on staging their forces for invasion, and then they were delayed again due to Xi Jinping telling Putin to not fuck up his Beijing Olympics or he wouldn't get tacit support from the PRC. All of which meant that the early-2022 invasion was likely caused by NATO-related issues that were looking increasingly concerning 3 years earlier.
