> Regardless of how much you keep repeating a one sided narrative, Russia’s invasion was not “unprovoked”.

That's a fringe opinion. Not a single government in Europe shares this view.

If anything, Western Europe has walked on eggshells since 1991, always trying to accommodate Russia at the expense of the security Eastern Europe, constantly downplaying fears and refusing to take defence of Europe seriously.

The narrative if NATO being hostile and encircling Russia is very hard to justify if you look at the key facts:

MILITARY SPENDING of Europe had been and continued to steadily decrease since the end of the Cold War. In 2006, the total spending was 190 billion. By 2014, it was down to 162 billion.[1] As a percentage of GDP, Cold War era spending was 3-5%, now it's 1-2%.

EUROPEAN MILITARY CAPABILITIES were in steep decline too. In 1990, German Army had 308 000 personnel, 5045 tanks, 2136 IFVs. To cut costs, Germany disbanded most of its army and sold off its equipment all over the world, as far as Chile. By 2015, only 61 312 personnel, 225 tanks and 406 remained.[2] The same trends were mirrored in other countries.

AMERICAN MILITARY presence in Europe was also in decline. In 1987, the US had 80 military bases in Europe. 30 years later, less than half remained.[3] Furthermore, these bases are a shadow of their former self: the number of US military personnel deployed to Europe is at the lowest since WW2, down from 320 000 during the 1980s to around 60 000 nowadays, stationed predominantly in Germany and Italy.[4] In 1989, US Army had 5000 tanks in Germany alone. In 2013, the last twenty American tanks departed Europe.[5]

NEW DEPLOYMENTS TO EUROPE were ridiculously small, mainly light infantry for host nation training purposes: as of 2017, a single non-permanent battalion with 800 personnel and 4 jets in Estonia, a 1200-strong battalion in Latvia and another in Lithuania with 4 jets, and 4000-strong armored battalion in Poland. Plus 4 jets in Romania for three months in the summer.[6]

Speaking of MISSILES, NATO and Russia agreed in the founding act of 1997 that NATO would not station any missiles in Eastern Europe. NATO has upheld that commitment for a quarter of a century. The only missiles in Eastern Europe are Russian Iskanders and Kalibrs in Kaliningrad.[7] The hypothetical often repeated "Cuba armed to teeth with missiles" scenario already exist in Europe, with short-range Russian nuclear missiles pointed at Europe. And yet no-on is crying about provocations and proposing that Europe should preemptively bomb Moscow.

Until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Europe was unilaterally disarming itself to the extent that Germany didn't even have enough equipment for joint exercises with other countries.[8] Any notion of existential threat to Russia from such armies is severly misguided to put it mildly. If Russia was worried about security, it only had to wait.

And in a way, it did. Russia waited until Europe became weak enough (in their assessment) not to pose a credible threat to Russian plans, and then used the power vacuum to do what they wanted to do. But it turned out to be a miscalculation. Unlike previous blitzkriegs, Russia is now bogged down in unwinnable war and Putin has damned Russia for a generation, and Europe is re-arming for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Historically the most pacifist party in Germany is now the strongest advocate for military aid to Ukraine. Finland and Sweden I already mentioned, their abandonment of neutrality is a shift of historic proportions. Calls for appeasement towards Russia used to be in the mainstream, now they have become a career suicide for European politicians.

In ten or fifteen years' time, conspiracy theorists will be writing books on how Putin was a CIA agent sent to weaken Russia and again blaming the west, because that will be the most plausible explanation for the utterly destructive actions over the past two decades. And Russia itself will go through hardships comparable to early 1990s. Not to mention that hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians are dead on both sides of the Russian-Ukranian border, and just today Putin announced another mobilization to send another few hundred thousand to death, and for what? What are they dying for? Russian society will implode once it comes to terms with the fact that Putin has brought them 10 Afghan war worth of losses in a single year because Putin, isolated from everyone due to Covid, hallucinated in his bunker that 800 marines in Estonia and 4 fighter jets in Romania were encircling Russia.

[1] European military spending: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/styles/full_c...

[2] Bundeswehr's size: https://www.fpri.org/docs/germany_military.png

[3] US bases in Europe: https://www.statista.com/chart/11403/the-us-militarys-europe...

[4] US troops in Europe: https://images01.military.com/sites/default/files/styles/ful...

[5] Last US tanks leave Europe: https://www.stripes.com/us-army-s-last-tanks-depart-from-ger...

[6] NATO presence in Eastern Europe: http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/7877.jpeg

[7] Iskander range: https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/1...

[8] Broomsticks instead of machine guns: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/19...