It took them 3.5 months to move the forces into place for this invasion and call up reserves: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/01/satellite-russia-ukraine-military-518337 (It was written about extensively)
Ukraine even had EU membership in reach before this war.
You're taking a statement out of context, or not really meant nor realistic, and running with it.
Russia was OK with Ukraine (not happy) and tolerated OUR BULLSHIT (sponsoring coups, building 12 CIA bases, etc.) until we decided to make Ukraine a military proxy officially and bring them into a military alliance. That is unacceptable for us as it's unacceptable for the Russians.
This is what you're really saying: We the big and always right USA are allowed to defend our sphere of interest: Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Greenland, Mexico. We will build up military forces on their borders and shore, coerce and threaten neighbors, invade nations and bomb the crap out of them, kidnap their leaders and put them before a kangaroo court... But Russia has no such right if the world's most powerful nation, and the world's most powerful military alliance, wants to build any number of bases, station any number of troops, types of equipment (to include nukes, missile defense and hyper sonic missiles) and numbers thereof, conducting any sort of missions, for any duration of time, without any sort of inspections or oversight on their border.
You are unrealistic.
What we did in October 2021 was likely precipitated by the idea that Russia is seen as weak and no longer a conventional near peer by our policy makers, that we believed Russia is not willing to pay the price to stop us.
We basically crawled over the fence into someone's backyard, took a $hit, and then when they came on the porch yelling at us, gave them the middle finger. Finally, we pretended to be surprised and outraged (unprovoked war of aggression nonsense) that they came into the yard with an axe handle wanting to hand out a beating/clubbing.
In fact, what we did, was so outrageous, so ridiculous and over the top, that you should be asking yourself if we didn't do this intentionally? Specifically, cause a war so that we can gobble up the Russian oversea possessions more easily. We have been going after them for YEARS: Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2014, Venezuela starting long long before 2026. If we intentionally cause a war in Ukraine, Russia gets depleted and their resources (military and especially their special forces, intel, logistics, mercenaries, law enforcement/security) are diverted as this will become their highest priority.
You will have the Euro's flipping 1/2 the bill, the Ukraine doing all the bleeding, and we stand to benefit in EVERY way! Europe moves away from Russian oil and gas, meaning they use more of ours (or from areas where we have control such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar...). Russia becomes weaker on the world stage and has a hard time holding onto their oil and gas producing possessions we have been eyeballing for years. Our war industry is happy.
Think about it, for us it was a "win-win." If Russia acquiesces and lets NATO in, we win, huge. We now have a proxy on Russia's border with a vehemently anti-Russian junta we installed which we can leverage against Russia at will. Russia is at that point no longer a world power. If they go to war to stop us, we also win, as they become weaker on the world stage and we gobble up more of what once was under them and shore up control in those areas which are still contested like Libya. This is the game of Risk and it is us that is the most powerful player on the board, that is making the first moves they react to, squeezing Russia, not them threatening us (they do not even have that ability realistically).
“The Russians didn’t even have a military force CAPABLE of threatening Ukraine....” in 2021
—> that is incorrect - Russia absolutely HAD the forces to crush Ukraine pre-2022. It had 900K active troops vs Ukraine’s 196K and vastly more armor/aircraft.
The politico article you linked from Nov 2022 actually describes a NEW buildup starting lat Sep 2021 involving elite Ruski units like the 1st guards tank army. Thsi was a deliberate escalation, not weakness.
By Dec 2021, over 100K Russki troops were massed and the full invasion force was ready by Feb 2022 after months of preparation. This was strategic positioning for a quick strike and win.
“when we decided to bring Ukraine into NATO.”
What are you talking about? The USA didn’t “decide” to do this - Ukraine begged to be let in, but France and Germany rejected.
And in 2021, there was no question of them even raising a request, leave alone it being accepted.
No invitation of Membership action plan was issued in the year before FEb 2022.
ukraine only applied in september 2022 AFTER the invasion.
“Ukraine even had EU membership in reach before the war”
huh?? EU membership was far, far away - they were at least a decade away from fulfilling the criteria
“Tolerated our bullshit like coups anc CIA bases”
The 2014 Maidan wasn’t a US sponsored coup - on the contrary the US state department as caught completely off guard. Claims of US orchestration are Muscowite propaganda with no evidence.
As to CIA bases - no proof has been provided by Moscow even AFTER they conquered 26% of Ukraine in March 2022