Russia in fact has own writings and speeches. Putin talks about his own historical ideas. Putin talked about it for years at this point. Russian journals print their own articles expressing regrets for big Russia. The whole "Ukraine should not exist as nation" comes from what Russian leadership talks about and talked about for years. Russians, the political minority that is running away out of genuine fear (rather then economy) now were talking about all this for years.
There is also pattern in which Russian non-profits got targeted or who got assassinated. Pattern in who was getting rehabilitated and who is still criminal. Stalin is turning into capable manager and his victims are not rehabilitated unless they were actually innocent of being opposition. The non profits trying to uncover communist crimes (including KGB crimes) were the ones suppressed by Putin. The final blow happened now, but Memorial was quite clearly oppressed for years now.
You talk about Russia as one group and it is like that now, when everyone is passive. Opposition got eliminated and state security strengthened. It happened over years. And it did not happened because of NATO.
> The US was very involved in the "totally-organic-grassroots-uncoup" in Ukraine in 2014[1] - so to think that wouldn't impact Russia's geopolitical strategy is, well, illogical.
Of course, ignoring previous involvement of Russia in Ukraine. It is not like Viktor Yanukovych was not ... lets say influenced by Russia. And Ukrainine still wants to go into NATO and Eu. Desperately they want in.
> present the actual logically based outcomes of our actions
Sure. Not being in NATO and being next to Russia, makes you potential Russian target. Russia attacking non-NATO country does not prove Russia would be peaceful country had NATO not expanded. Nothing about internal Russian politics points toward them being happy and content where they are.
Even Russia stopped the whole "we are afraid of NATO" talking point. Now it is only "denacification" or "protecting Russians in Ukraine" or "Ukrainians are Russians" or "Ukrainians were commtiting genocide" or, in latest talks, "we will destroy them". This talking point existed for a whole week and when it did not flied, Russia abandoned it with no regret.