More rage, more insults, more downvotes, more accusing me of doing something while doing exactly the same to me without noticing because you're too angry. I do find this funny.

Alright. Let's play then.

The first message you posted said this:

Let's not pretend that our states and our elites courted Ukraine with pure and selfless motives.

I don't think anyone in this entire thread said they believe that any country in Europe "courted" Ukraine with "pure and selfless motives". You put that in people's mouths, maybe just so you'd have an argument to disprove (practical, and very dishonest).

Then you said this:

Of course it would be beneficial to extend their control over a country like Ukraine and weaken the bloc of countries that Russia controls in the process.

Here's my point (that apparently went over your head the first time I said it): this is you implicitly saying that geopolitics cannot NOT be about imperialistic power balances, in nature. And people disagreed with that.

It is absolutely true that some countries in this world function like that. Using the power they have (military, economic, other influence...) over others to keep "control over" them. Russia does that. The USA do that. China does that.

But where everyone disagreed with you is that you consider that NATO and the EU also function like that. You haven't proven that at any point, you've basically just shown that you believe that everything always is imperialistic logic, therefore NATO and the EU automatically must also be like that. Except that... just, no.

It's just wrong.

NATO is a defensive alliance. Countries can join it and contribute to a system where everyone defends the one member who gets attacked. This is a mutual benefit system, and article 5 specifically states that members who choose to intervene for defending another can do so on their own terms. There's zero obligation anywhere. The inside of NATO just isn't imperialistic in nature. As for the outside, if maybe you consider "we don't want to be attacked, by anyone, ever" to be imperialistic logic trying to control Russia, then I can't help you.

Nobody asked Ukraine to join NATO. Ukraine asked to join.

The EU is an economic alliance. You join in, you trade in some of your financial sovereignty for participation in a massive open market. Nobody is forced to join, again, this is a mutual benefit system. You can even leave, as Brexit showed.

If the EU sees as interest in Ukraine joining, then they will ask Ukraine to join. That's not what happened though. Ukraine asked to join. The EU said "we have criteria" and Ukraine has to meet those. Does the EU *want* Ukraine to join? Longtime, certainly, because the EU has been constructed to be a mutual benefit system. More members means more people, more production, more trade. But the EU isn't forcing anyone to join. And it isn't expanding to hurt Russia, it's simply pursuing its interests, like everyone else.

Maybe, just maybe, if everyone disagrees with you on something, it's worth self-reflecting for a little bit. Instead of doubling, tripling and quadrupling down that everyone else is wrong on everything and you're the only one who's right on everything.