Putin has been stating his position on this topic publicly for years/decades actually.
He has reasons for that view—there is nothing unreasonable about drawing that conclusion.
It is not reasonable to claim that anyone who disagrees with you on a debatable proposition is a “pathological liar”.
Absolutely nothing new here. The NATO issue is a red herring. Russians have been killing their smaller neighbors since long before NATO arrived on the scene. Naturally, they wanted NATO because of that. Putin just uses the NATO boogie man as a useful tool to dupe the uniformed and historically ignorant.
I wasn't calling you a pathological liar. I was calling the Russians pathological liars, which is true.
They lied about the invasion. They told hundreds of lies in the run up to the invasion. They lied during the invasion and after the invasion. And all that's just recent. They've been lying to us systematically for decades from everything to missile defenses to their support of Iran's Mullahs.
And no, there is objectively no threat to Russia from any NATO country. It is a defensive alliance. If not, please point out what nukes Estonia or any of the Baltic countries have, or what anti-missile system they possess that would save them from a Russian nuclear strike, or what military capability any of them have, or what permanent NATO forces are stationed there that are capable of invading Russia.