Your opinion is low information. If Putin’s goal was expansion, some of countries below would be easier to conquer by orders of magnitude than Ukraine, because of size.
Norway, Finland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Georgia, Mongolia, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, etc all border with Russia.
But Ukraine/Zelensky was the only one clamoring for NATO membership. None of the others were.
What I stated is not even an opinion. It is fact. Putin has said that himself - many times over.
“””Norway, Finland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Georgia, Mongolia, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, etc all border with Russia.But Ukraine/Zelensky was the only one clamoring for NATO membership. None of the others were.”””
You keep listing NATO countries.
Norway, Latvia, Poland, Estonia are all NATO, and Finland is probably joining and won’t be attacked by Russia.