You don't know what you're talking about. Putin's point of view does only represent a sad guy who lives in lies and outside of real information from the outside world. Real Russians have almost no interest or connection to their own country and decisions "it" makes. They're only trying to survive. They only know about NATO from state media. There was even an interview (possibly not one) that NATO gave for Russians to make them understand what's really happening. But state media is not interested in such things or would have called it all lies. Logic they force on citizens is always twisted and there is no point in last 10 years at least where I could say Russians actually had a point of view of their own.

NATO is a hostile military alliance that has slowly been encircling Russia for the past decades

It also expanded last year. When do you think Putin will hit Finland? Why did he not protest before that happened? Oh right, you only want to describe Russia's point of view, not the logic behind it.

The quote is also not much different from something like "NASA has been slowly washing people's brains for past decades". You can't seriously explain someone's actions while assuming it's fine for them to be out of touch with the reality.

US / EU / NATO did double down on arming Ukraine

You sure? They have been arming Ukraine before the invasion? Did they also not arm the rest of Europe? Putin allowed that?

I'm not excusing any of this - but these choices and events made this war predictable and inevitable

I'd ask you to provide sources on this. Are there any reputable experts or otherwise sources that correctly predicted the war? Are there so many of them to call it obvious? Why was it not at all obvious to Russian citizens at the very least?

Thus my example about China arming Mexico. The US would react in the exact same way, and we have ample historical evidence for that. And it's not my point that this excuses anything, it's that these things are predictable so we do carry a responsibility to deescalate, demand negotiations so Ukraine gets their land back while Russia gets security guarantees.

We have historical evidence for something that never happened?

Where is the logicality in your comments? Did you mention the US invasions to Iraq and Afghanistan to say how they were predictable? That some other countries could prevent those from happening by giving the US security guarantees?

Why not mention how Poland provoked Hitler to start the world war, according to Putin?