Akshually, Ukrainians want to join the EU, not NATO. If you don't believe me, look up the survey prior to 2014/2015 on how many want to join NATO and EU. You will find that majority of Ukrainians do not want to join the alliance but it's completely opposite for the latter. The yearning by Ukrainians to join NATO changed overnight after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Gee, I wonder why?
NATO=/= EU. They are two completely different things! That's like Ireland being attacked by Russia for being in the EU even though majority of Irish abhor NATO! Equating the two organisations is part of Russian propaganda. Because for the Russians, a sovereign country not aligning to them economically is the same as opposing them militarily.
It's a blindspot among Westerners to refuse seeing the Russian mindset. They have their own worldview that is alien to the West and vice versa. The Russians have Eurasianist worldview where the center of the world and power is Asia; and their country carving a huge piece of that pie. Even oppositions of ruling government-- from communist to Putin era-- are hard-core nationalists as well from Alexander Solzhenytsin to Alexey Navalny. They are poster boy of Russian opposition from their respective time and yet believe Russia should also go its own way. They might be more liberal minded Russians, but they are nationalist first and foremost, and Eurasianists at that.
So, with that in mind, for the Russians, Ukraine and Georgia joining the EU-- a socio-economic bloc-- is unacceptable and tantamount to joining NATO; even though the fucking majority of Ukrainians and Georgians do not want to join NATO until further Russian provocations, brought by Russian siege mentality, pushed those countries to crave to join NATO. If Putin does not want NATO expansion, he certainly pushed two more countries to join, namely Finland and Sweden. Even Alexey Navalny-- Putin's main presidential opponent-- said of the current president as the worst in geopolitics for having just provoked more countries to join NATO if the intention is to prevent its expansion. Those who says otherwise and keep harping about West provoking Ukraine to join NATO is Russian propaganda, because from the latter's pov, either Ukraine signs a deal with them economically, or it means opposing them existentially too. Because Russia wants to carve their own sphere of influence.