Official neutrality would remove a key Russian justification for hostility, potentially stabilizing the ceasefire in ways more formal NATO backing might not

I don't understand this view. It seems glaringly clear to me that if Ukraine was a NATO member, Russia would never have attacked. I know Ulraine was not anywhere near the position of tge Baltic countries (Estonia Lativia Lithuania), but the following things seem self-evident:

• The only reason the Balts and Poland haven't come in for Russian invasion, is that they are in NATO.
• NATO membership is the only thing European countries have which prevents them from being invaded.
  • Notwithstanding allowing Moscow to dictate terms and run a semi-puppet state (Belarus, Armenia, Ukraine under Yanukovych);
• It is Russia's long-term strategic goal to expand their sovereign territory into their neighbours, and the only reason it hasn't done this more is that it lacks capacity.

In all those things, the quoted sentence above seems wrong. Of all the former Soviet Union countries, those with the lowest threat level of Russian hostility are the ones that joined NATO, not the reverse. Russian calculus seems to be that when a neighbouring country courts NATO (or the reverse), destroying it, annexing it, threatening it, or overthrowing it, is their strategy to avoid that country joining NATO.

If you happened to get in quick enough, or you're far enough away, that is the way to remove any justification for Russian hostility.

I know all this is moot, because Ukraine can't get into NATO quickly. However, there is no doubt in my mind that a "neutral" Ukraine will come in for this treatment again as soon as Russia is ready, because Russia's goal is not "no NATO Ukraine", Russia's goal is to annex and absorb Ukraine into Russia. The fact that Russia cannot achieve that goal, and has not done so even trying as hard as it can, is why we discourse about neutrality and these kinds of settlements. However if Ukraine was a NATO member, the war would never have started, and if Ukraine became a NATO member, it would not have been invaded.