Well there is some truth to that as I said Clinton pushed NATO East but I think your wording may not be entirely accurate. Your statement said NATO withdrawal, did you mean Russia was demanding Eastern Nations leave NATO?
No I don’t think they did.
‘From Reuters Nov 2021–“ withdrawal of multinational NATO battalions from Poland and from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that were once in the Soviet Union.”.
They were demanding a neutral Ukraine and essentially no build up of foreign hostile forces near their border. These Eastern European nations (except Ukraine) could have their own defense forces and of course could call on NATO to send support in if they were invaded, it seems. Ukraine is different, they consider Ukraine as essential to their existence as a neutral nation…it’s their line in the sand.
It seems a reasonable demand. Now whether or not Russia over-reacted or even faked the excuse to defend their borders and want to conqueror Ukraine is impossible for me to say. It appears they consider themselves a major power and refuse to accept a NATO Ukraine..when Ukraine indicated they would join NATO they attacked.
I honestly think this theory Russia is the new 3rd Reich thing to be nonsense, that they will start Gobbling up nation after nation if they win here. They have a declining population, why do they need more land?
Putin demanded NATO withdraw from those countries (Poland, Lithuania, etc) which means they would have no NATO protection from a russian invasion, like Ukraine.
As for being able to "call on NATO to send support if they were invaded", would be of little help to the smaller Baltic countries who would be swallowed up before any serious help came.