Ukraine and NATO have a weird history. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union they fiercely wanted independence, and they were as distrustful of Europe and NATO as they were of Russia. Russia pretty much immediately started meddling in their politics, and corruption was rife. There was a company in Columbia MO called Hunger Worldwide that was bidding on a complete grain system to go on the black sea. Impressive stuff. They eventually gave up because they said you never got done bribing somebody. This would have been in the mid 90's. This is what the EU and NATO and the U.S. were trying to clean up that lead to the famous Biden statement of "Get rid of this guy or we're withholding aid." Biden and Co. had been trying to shepherd Ukraine into NATO because they sort of saw what was coming. It's too bad they hadn't come up with a comprehensive plan. I don't think anybody thought it was actually going to happen until it did. Crimea should have been a wakeup call. Obama blamed Mike Flynn for essentially blinding them to what was coming in Crimea.