I **definitely** don’t think this invasion came out of a vacuum! Indeed, NATO declarations in particular were very relevant.

Still you claimed that these actions before the invasion were taken in order to remove Putin from power. This does not seem like a supported assertion.

My guess is that NATO thought ``hey we already invited Poland, we can probably do this with Ukraine. Russia wont like it, but what can it do?’’

They were wrong.

And Putin thought, ``hey, the majority of Ukraine is now more favorable to the EU, in the long run it could go that way, but militarily I can control it now easily.”

He was wrong.

Still it IS plausible that if Ukraine had declared itself to be neutral in some way, it would not have gotten invaded. (we can never know, but it is PLAUSIBLE.)

Now regime change is at least on the table. (I doubt it will happen, as Russian citizens are still quite in favor of Putin.) but neither Russia nor the USA really saw regime change as a likely path. (and I still don’t).

BTW, my claim that that the majority of Ukraine is more favorable to EU/west is from a PEW research report. If you have an other report I should know about, I would be interested. (And would be skeptical if it were associated with the Kremlin.)