I think they leaned a bit too far into villainizing Putin and not far enough into exposing US meddling (not that I think Putin should be lionized or anything). I mean a situation like this demands some sort of Russian military response and focusing on the character of Russia’s president distracts from this.

And even though Ukraine probably wasn’t going to be formally incorporated into NATO, they were already a de facto member like Sweden and Finland. Like they said: there are no rules. It’s ridiculous to imply that Americans care about the letter of the law when they already coup’d Ukraine and have been funding, arming, and training Neonazis there for years.