The US had a huge nuclear arsenal when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened. Amazingly enough non-friendly powers don't like it when you start setting up military bases near their home soil.
Whether or not NATO wants to exterminate a country is irrelevant. Gaddafi and Saddam were allies to the west at certain points during their life. Nobody wanted to exterminate their countries either and people like you probably would have told Iraqi and Libyan doomsayers the exact same thing.
Allowing your strategic enemy to place military bases within spitting distance of your country, allowing your strategic enemy to install a regime friendly to them in a country on your doorstep, is something no government would allow.
This isn't the Cold War, and the US is not really an 'enemy' of Russia. At best it is wary of it and a rival for influence on the world stage. Again, the idea that the US wants to invade/nuke/destroy Russia is absurd.
I think NATO's motivations are pretty damn relevant when you are basing your foreign policy on exactly those motives... as for Libya and Iraq, the West went for regime change, not annexation or an erasure of those nationalities. Of course those nations exist as Western constructs anyway from colonial times.
Again, this is not the Cold War. Russia is not facing imminent threat of an invasion by the West. To think it is lunacy. There is nothing to gain from such a move, and a hell of a lot to lose. At best NATO might
want regime change... but only because Putin's administration is so hostile to the West in the first place.
I'm honestly getting sick of all this Russian dick-sucking. It's like the more paranoid Russia is, the more justified it is to do whatever it wants. Why does Russia have a right to indulge in its fear and invade whoever it wants, but Ukraine does not have a right to be afraid of Russia, of itself being invaded by an overwhelming force?
Saying "well the US tried the same thing with Cuba" is asinine; at best it highlights US hypocrisy which we're all well aware of. I don't get why Russia can be terrified of the big bad NATO and do what it likes but Ukraine has to suffer invasion because how dare they want to join NATO and not get invaded by Russia.
Gee, it's almost like these states have a legit reason to join it...