Ukraine was not joining NATO. Nor do foreign policy professionals, both in Russia and abroad, consider NATO a threat to Russia. Nor does the war have anything to do with Barbarossa or many other historical comparisons; Russian propaganda generally avoids drawing comparisons to Barbarossa because Ukraine was at the forefront of the invasion and the historical parallels between the invaders would be too obvious. The sudden and devastating attack and siege of Kyiv in 1941 was a major traumatic early-war event that occupies a similar place in Russian mass consciousness as Pearl Harbor does in American consciousness. Instead, Russian propaganda frames the war as a continuation of a civilizational mission: the reclamation of "historic Russian lands" and the reunification of the Russian people.

This is at odds with the propaganda for foreign audiences that presents the war as a modern conflict with NATO, but thankfully, people like you who talk about listening to Russia don't actually know what's going on there and flat out refuse to listen what Russians are saying.

For instance, the commander of the 2014 invasion of Donbas is a prominent public figure, a mentor and ideologue, who used to host lengthy livestreams in which he discussed how and why the war happened. Have you watched any of his long talks about the restoration of the Russian imperial province of Novorossiya through war against Ukraine, or do you prefer to pretend that none of this exists?

Not to mention the entire pre-Putin generation of Russian politicians and diplomats, who are very active on Twitter and readily explain how NATO is beneficial to Russia by imposing extensive standards on its members along Russia's western border.

Putin's own former senior advisor recently got so pissed about dumbasses placing blame on NATO that he published a video on his personal Youtube channel explaining why the entire narrative a malicious misrepresentation of the facts and bullshit from the start. According to him, Putin held secret staff meetings (which the advisor attended) about the invasion of Ukraine as early as 2005, which predates the common excuses for the war by many years.

But no. Instead of listening to Russians, you just repeat hollow Russian war propaganda that echoes across the internet without any real people behind it, believing that you have some insight that others lack.