Joe Biden and Ukrainian leaders started the Russian invasion of Ukraine due to NATO expansion.

Question

You need to read more. Especially the posts you respond to. Ukraine joining NATO means Moscow Military District becoming the first line of Russisn defense and any missiles launched from Ukraine are indefensible. The war was started by Biden and the Ukrainian elite. Not difficult to get, really.

Answer 1

The biggest problem with this claim is that it flips who actually started the fighting. While the claim says Biden and Ukraine started it, historical records show that Russia launched the full-scale attack on February 24, 2022. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Russia is the aggressor because they crossed into another country's border, while Biden and Ukraine were just reacting to Russia moving troops to the area.

Another issue is saying NATO expansion was the only cause. While Putin uses NATO as an excuse, Ukraine wasn't even close to joining NATO in 2022. Experts from CSIS argue the war is actually about Putin wanting to take back land and control Ukraine. His own speeches show he believes Ukraine belongs to Russia, which makes the invasion more about power than just a disagreement over a treaty.

Finally, the timing is off because the war didn't actually start with Biden. It started back in 2014 when Russia took over Crimea. Linking it only to Biden's recent choices ignores the fact that this has been going on for over ten years. These sources show it’s more accurate to say Russia used NATO as an excuse to carry out a plan they had for a long time.

Council on Foreign Relations: Conflict in Ukraine

CSIS: The War in Ukraine

Answer 2

This is a very bold claim to make, and is not very true at all. There were way more complexities to this war, and tensions and conflicts had be stewing in the region for years and years before Russia's invasion in 2022. One of the first attacks that Russia enacted upon Ukraine was in 2014--long before Biden was ever president. Russia annexed Crimea, which started an armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin has wanted some, if not all of Ukraine to be reabsorbed into Russia for a long time. Although I can see how both President Biden's and NATO's action leading up to the 2022 invasion could be interpreted as directly causing this action, that is simply not what happened. Russia had been building up hostility towards not only Ukraine but also the West as a whole. They saw even just the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO as a direct threat to their existence as a nation because it meant that the West would be closer then they wanted. Ukraine hadn't even begun the process of joining NATO, it was merely something they were interested in as a nation to be protected from Russian invasion. So, United States President Joe Biden and NATO were not directly responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There is way more nuance and history to be added in order to fully understand this complicated situation. I tried to find the most un-biased sources I could but I do believe that some of what these articles are documenting is on the side of being pro-Ukraine in this war, but a lot of Western media coverage on this war is very biased towards Ukraine. 

War in Ukraine

How Russia and Ukraine's Tangled Histories Led to War