You are well aware of the situation and the parallels to which I was referring.
The Ukrainian military has been propped up, trained, and funded by the US and other NATO members. The Zelensky regime is in power mostly because of foreign interference in Ukraine's political process and outsiders are pulling his strings.
While "campaigning" Zelensky promised to bring peace and end corruption in the country. He lied and did the opposite. 80% of the people still living in Ukraine believe that he is now the person most responsible for corruption in the country. He of course did nothing but increase tensions with Russia. He has cracked down hard on any internal resistance and has suspended all elections for the foreseeable future. Feigning ignorance in your case seems absurd, but it is possible that you and your better half have too many bitter personal experiences to see this situation with anything resembling perspective.
NATO started with 12 member countries in 1949 to deter Soviet expansion. Since its inception NATO is the entity who has constantly expanded to the point where it now has 31 countries who are members with Sweden still going through the ratification process.
The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 31, 1991. Many of its former members joined NATO. The following is a map showing the expansion of NATO. It takes very little imagination to understand why Russia which tends to have paranoid leadership anyway would feel threatened.
An animated map of the expansion of the military alliance, NATO from its founding to 2023.
Do you want to pretend that the Russia's leadership should not feel threatened by NATO's expansionist policies?