What are you talking about? They took Crimea in 2014 and South Ossetia in 2008.
I was very clear that I am not claiming that Russia had the right to invade.
My claim is that the globalists knew exactly what would happen.
As for why Putin decided to invade now....
Since the western-backed coup in Ukraine, there have been numerous actions that could be perceived as moving Ukraine closer to de facto membership. In just the last three years alone, the Ukrainian constitution was changed to codify the aspiration for NATO membership rather than neutrality, over $1 billion worth of weapons were poured into Ukraine since spring of 2021, the U.S. and other countries trained the Ukrainian military to work directly with NATO, more US/UK/NATO exercises were held in the region and US warships increased their time spent in the Black Sea by 150% between 2020 and 2021. There was also concern that missile systems similar to those stationed in Romania and Poland – that are believed by the Russian government to have offensive capability with a change in software – could be installed in Ukraine.
While it may be true that the country was not going to be officially admitted into NATO any time soon, it wasn’t exactly insane from Russia’s perspective to think that de facto NATO membership was an ever-increasing reality.
In June 2020 NATO offered Ukraine "Enhanced Opportunity Partner status". According to the British government report "Military assistance to Ukraine 2014-2021," "this status provides Ukraine with preferential access to NATO’s exercises, training and exchange of information and situational awareness, in order to increase interoperability. In September 2020 Ukraine hosted Exercise Joint Endeavor, with British, US and Canadian troops," which was "the first exercise conducted under Ukraine’s new enhanced status."
A number of other major exercises have been organized since and others, involving tens of thousands of troops, were planned for 2022.
As reported by the Associated Press on November 30, 2021, Putin told the audience at an online investment forum that he was worried about this very thing:
Speaking to participants of an online investment forum the Russian president said that NATO’s eastward expansion has threatened Moscow’s core security interests. He expressed concern that NATO could eventually use the Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Russia’s command centers in just five minutes.
"The emergence of such threats represents a ‘red line’ for us," Putin said. "I hope that common sense and responsibility for their own countries and the global community will eventually prevail."
Putin expressed similar concerns a month later in a speech to his military leaders:
Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads….
In fact, Putin tried to explain, in a visibly frustrated tone, to a group of Western journalists during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2016 that US/NATO was engaging in provocative behaviors that threatened Russia’s security and that he would eventually be forced to act:
"I must remind you, though you already know this, that major global conflicts have been avoided in the past few decades due to the geostrategic balance of power, which used to exist. So the Iranian threat does not exist. But missile defense systems are continuing to be built. That means we were right when we said they are lying to us. I don’t know how this is all going to end. What I do know is that we will need to defend ourselves. And I even know how they will package this: "Russian aggression" again. But this is simply our response to your actions. Is it not obvious that I must guarantee the safety of our people? And not only that, but we must attempt to retain the necessary strategic balance of power, which is the point that I began with…It was precisely this balance of power that guaranteed the safety of humanity from major global conflict over the past 70 years. It was a blessing rooted in a mutual threat, but this mutual threat is what guaranteed mutual peace, on a global scale. How they could so easily tear it down, I simply don’t know. I think this is gravely dangerous. I not only think that, I’m assured of it.
He said he wouldn't stand by.
The CIA director knew he wouldn't stand by.
The entire western world knew he wouldn't stand by.
Yet we continued to push until he invaded.
That's exactly
the point! Russia did nothing when former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania joined NATO. It likewise did nothing when former Soviet Republican Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia all did that same. Which shows this has nothing to do with NATO.
When Russia grabbed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, there was no prospective NATO membership on the table. Russia grabbed it anyway simply because it wanted Crimea. And when Russia went into South Ossetia in 2008, there likewise had been zero change in the non-relationship between Georgia and NATO. NATO membership is the red herring -- the excuse Putin uses to justify his military adventurism.
As for the rest of it
While it may be true that the country was not going to be officially admitted into NATO any time soon,
Full stop. That is literally the only point that matters in terms of the alleged provocation. And the rather limited weapons that had entered Ukraine only did so after Russia and Putin's little green men grabbed Crimea in 2014. I mean, that's a joke of an argument. "We seized your most important port from your incompetent military in 2014, and the fact that you are now trying to strengthen your military justifies us grabbing the rest of your puny country."
The only part of what you said that raises a legitimate issue is this:
He expressed concern that NATO could eventually use the Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Russia’s command centers in just five minutes.
Fine. If Putin had said "I need a guarantee that NATO will not put nuclear weapons in Ukraine", I think that's a legitimate concern that could have been addressed as a prerequisite to Ukraine joining NATO. I'd even have listened to Russian concerns about large scale military operations by NATO countries in Ukraine. Limits on numbers, or maybe geographic limits on exercises east of the Dnieper, may have been reasonable. But that's not what he was demanding. He wanted no NATO membership of any kind, and that was 100% unreasonable for a country that already had been invaded once by Russia.