I'll try to keep it short and structured:

1. Russians were kicked out of Europe because their entire economy collapsed and they became unable to field occupying armies anymore. This is not a proof of "change of government philosophy".

2. Withdrawal suits much better to describe American forces in Europe. They removed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, almost all heavy weaponry, and closed half of all military installations as a policy choice.

3. Russians were back to their old tricks by mid-1990s and that drove Eastern Europe to seek security from NATO.

4. The US has had infantry in Estonia for training purposes. Estonians are specialists in camouflage, small unit tactics and winter warfare, while the Americans have a lot to teach about combined arms warfare. Estonia has hosted many countries, Poland has had air defense systems set up and Swedish air force has flown simulated missions against them. That's what friendly nations do.

5. Foreign deployments have been intentionally limited to insignificant numbers so that Russia could not credibly claim to be threatened, but Russians are nevertheless annoyed. Not because they have a delusion that a few hundred infantrymen can "encircle" a country that spans 11 timezones, but because lauching missiles at Estonian barracks (like Ukraine saw on 24th February 2022) could potentially kill hundreds of Americans and drag the US into the war on day one.

6. If you want to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in Cuba, then an ill-prepared invasion along the lines of the Bay of Pigs would be great idea. When the invasion fails, keep sending hundreds of thousands of fresh troops into Cuba year after year. Don't forget to blame China if they help Cuba out with ammo.

7. Placement of NATO missiles in Europe was already negotiated in 1997 and NATO has sticked to their commitments. Only Russia has been inching closer to the other side.

8. If Gorbachev directly calling the "NATO promises" a myth is not good enough for you, then here's the foreign minister of the USSR giving a longer interview repeating the same things. According to him, nothing of this sort was discussed with Western diplomats, Warsaw Pact, or within communist party circles in Moscow. As a bonus, he says that he finds nothing wrong with the way Eastern Europe joined NATO: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-e...

9. That everyone "welcomed" Central and Eastern Europe into international organizations. Memoirs of diplomats, politicians and other representatives are littered with stories how no-one even took the countries they represented as actual countries, let alone viewed as even remote candidates to organizations. Early proponents of the EU and NATO membership were openly ridiculed even domestically. Go visit a library, read old newspapers, it's all there.

10. Integration of Central and Eastern Europe into the European Union and NATO has been a phenomenal success and has produced some of the most stable and prosperous countries on the planet. My first salary barely 30 years ago was 27 USD a month. Nowadays, it surpasses the average of several countries in Western Europe. Integration roadmaps helped CEE countries develop into modern states that have separation of powers, respect human rights, are run by law and offer ample opportunities. In alternative timeline, the 100 million people who gained freedom could've ended up in Russian-controlled totalitarian dictatorships like Belarus. That may not have a meaningful impact on your life, but it very much does have on mine.

11. Again, nobody was "pouring weapons into Ukraine" before Russia invaded. And nowadays, military aid to Ukraine - including heavy weaponry - is coming from all continents except Antarctica. If only penguins had a few artillery pieces to spare.

12. You keep repeating how the Americans keep "orchestrating meat grinders". Russians invaded a foreign country and are ready to die by hundreds of thousands instead of leaving Ukrainians alone and going home. It's their choice.

13. You keep blaming Russian deaths on the Americans. This is as stupid as blaming deaths of invaders on people whose home was invaded, and on their neighbors who lent knives and baseball bats to fight them off.

14. NATO is so incredibly hostile that still cannot decide whether it should shoot down armed Russian drones flying over their cities. Happened twice in Romania last week, people got air raid alerts with instructions to seek shelter.

15. Russia is provoked by weakness and attacks countries that lag behind in building relations with other countries and remain fairly isolated, because this lowers the risk for them. Ideally, they would have entire Europe neutral like in the 1940s, so that they could invade them one by one like they did back then. European countries have learned the lessons of the misguided 1930s neutrality and nowadays seek security in numbers and mutual cooperation.

16. Most of your lines of thinking lead back to the central theme that NATO is bad because it causes more Russians to die when they decide to invade Europe. Very revealing. You do not care about the freedom and wellbeing of millions of Europeans, only the lives of invading Russians seem to matter.

**

I offer a completely different narrative, grounded in facts:

1. Collapse of Soviet economy allowed enslaved European nations to kick Russians out.

2. Illusions about Russia transforming into a normal democracy were crushed by mid-1990s the latest, as KGB oldtimers began restoring their power and destroying Russian democracy.

3. Governments of Eastern Europe were among the first ones to understand where that would lead to, and started desperately seeking political, economic and military integration with the West. They were ready to do whatever it takes to become integral parts of the free world, hoping that close relations would improve their odds of withstanding Russian attacks, which were deemed only a matter of time.

4. Existing EU and NATO governments were very hesitant at first, but eventually folded, because if not anything else, integration roadmaps would improve the separation of powers, protection of human rights, and other key issues that would make the newly independent countries more stable and help them avoid the kind of instability that lead to civil wars in Yugoslavia.

5. Most of Eastern Europe was in NATO and the EU by 2004. This was first and foremost a political step. NATO continued transformation from Cold War era fist with a punch into mobile light infantry for fighting international terrorist groups.

6. Destruction of Russian democracy was complete by the early 2010s protests.

7. After consolidating all power within Russia and destroying all opposition, Putin and his KGB buddies set their sights on external expansion.

8. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Russia was hit with fairly limited sanctions. Russian economy stagnated, but did not collapse. Ukraine received limited military aid, initially not even of lethal nature.

9. Seeing the disarmament of European militaries, naive hopes of European politicians that trade with Russia would eventually transform it into a democracy, and the unwillingness of United States to stand by its commitments in the Middle East, Russians took a gamble and launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, expecting Ukraine to fall over within days.

10. Through sheer luck, Ukraine repelled the initial invasion and bought enough time that foreign partners ran out of excuses, succumbed to both domestic and international pressure, and began supplying military aid.

11. Major donors remain very cautious and have placed severe restrictions on supplied aid, fearing that Russia could disintegrate. Their cautiousness is the main factor keeping Russia together as a country.

Seeing Iranian missiles being shot at European cities, and North Korean soldiers being brought in to kill Europeans in their homes, this cautiousness increasingly looks like a severe mistake that has only emboldened dictators all over the world and caused more death and destruction. These restrictions must be lifted and the military infrastructure used to attack Ukraine must be systematically destroyed until Russia leaves Ukraine alone.

Had an American division been stationed near Kyiv in 2022, Russians may not have invaded at all.