Lmao Putin isn't Putin up much of a fight these days. if you wanna scare him air drop solar panels all over the place and show a picture of some old howitzers.
> I'd rather America does not provoke Russia and have a military presence bordering Russia and not support Ukraine joining NATO.
Appeasing Russia will never work, they have appeased for decades and it just leads to more conflict. The only thing Russia will respond to is being physically rebuffed, luckily this is happening in Ukraine.
Russia was never provoked into invading Ukraine, they merely used their own propaganda machine to invent excuses for the invasion.
All, in all, if you also count Ukraine, NATO and EU expansion meant adding about a hundred million people to the western world. This may or may not be worth anything to you, but I'm glad you didn't make the decision.