If we are to be completely rational, what made no sense was Ukraine thinking it could be a part of NATO, or independent. It is the sad reality of existing next to a superpower. You cannot be independent. It would either be heavily influenced by Russia, or the option B they chose: in rubble.
Russia stopped being a superpower with the fall of the USSR. And before anyone says so, "has a permanent seat on UN security council" doesn't count, the UK and France also have that status and even combined were no longer superpowers by the time of the Suez crisis. Likewise "has nukes" is not sufficient.
The EU is closer to being one than Russia is today, and even then the EU is only kinda a bit of one in some measures but not all.
To hazard a guess: because Google et al think you're the kind of person who clicks that kind of source.
When I search for list of superpowers, I get superheroes — obviously nobody on Marvel or DC is going to be listed as having "Russia" as their superpower, but this does illustrate what it is that search engines do these days, and it's not objective truth.
I could link to Wikipedia, which says of Russia "potential" superpower (along with the EU, China, and India), not currently an extant superpower. But that's not what I'd call "authoritative".
And this is the point where I got that link to the CIA's paranormal research. The CIA's World Factbook doesn't even describe the USA as a "superpower", at least not at the time of writing: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-stat...
What of those two options did Finland choose? In reality Russia shares a land border with 14 countries, 6 of which are already NATO members (of the others the second largest border is with China). And the countries they have only a maritime border with are Japan and the USA.
The sad reality is that your logic is just a twisted pretzel to support the position you wish to take which is you support Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Which US policy do you think caused Russia to invade Ukraine?
Was it the one where the USA, along with the UK and Russia, all jointly signed an agreement to respect Ukraine's (and several other post-USSR nations') independence and sovereignty in their existing borders (as of 5 December 1994), including an obligation to seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used", so that Ukraine would give up the nuclear weapons it had accidentally inherited from the USSR?
Put it another way: given your stance on the US mil-ind complex, do you think this war would stop if the USA completely vanished from the international scene?
Because the EU is right next door and also doesn't want Russia thinking it can do stuff like this.
If Russia attacked Ukraine because it considered applying for NATO membership that would be years of not decades away why did Russia not attack any other country that actually started the process of joining NATO and did actually join.
This line of reasoning is exactly why everyone bordering Russia is preparing for an invasion, and why no one deludes themselves with "Mr. Hitler will surely stop at Poland." It's not about NATO, ethnic Russians, or any other common excuse, but a fundamental collision between an imperialistic view of the world (represented by Putin's dictatorship) and a cooperative one (represented by the EU). Nations are naturally drawn to the EU, which does not force them to live under someone's boot, and Putin tries to stop that through raw violence.
