NATO is hardly an uninterested party in the dispute.
This is plain common sense. When the Cold War ended, the need for a military alliance against a no-longer-in-existence USSR ended with it.
To then expand the alliance to the borders of Russia is nonsensical, UNLESS the intent is to make enemies of them again. Without such intent there is no reason to expand the organization.
The only way to not see this is to be completely unable to put oneself in another person’s shoes. How could Russia possibly see NATO expansion as benign, especially in the wake of the war in Yugoslavia, and the later war in Iraq?
And then Libya, and Syria, and Ukraine... the US has been systematically overthrowing governments friendly to Russia.
If we were in their shoes, the need to act in self-defense against the growing threat of US aggression would be so obvious that anyone who didn’t see it would be regarded as crazy or suicidal.
“If we were in their shoes, the need to act in self-defense against the growing threat of US aggression would be so obvious that anyone who didn’t see it would be regarded as crazy or suicidal.”
Exactly what threat does the U.S. or NATO pose to Russia? Neither has any design on Russian territory. What the U.S. and NATO oppose is the rebuilding of the old Russian empire at the expense of the economic and political freedom of the people of the former Soviet satellite countries. Putin can’t put the old Soviet genie back in the bottle without risking an all-out military conflict.