Do you get the impression that the NATO countries don't really want Ukraine to join NATO, and that's why they aren't coming to defend it?

What is happening now is not something which NATO countries want.

As Ukraine is not a NATO member, there is no treaty obligation to commit troops to defend it. I also think NATO sending in troops would be an extremely bad idea. However, I do think that the Ukrainians can feel let down by NATO for talking tougher than it is prepared to act.

The sanctions on Russia so far do not include oil and gas, which are the two things which the Russian economy is based on. Europeans don't feel able to impose such sanctions because those are vitally needed commodities.

It's obvious that Russia has been preparing it's economy for this crisis but the western European nations have not. If the economies of the west had more quicker to renewables then they would be less dependent on Russian imports.

With that in mind, the smart thing to do would have been to tell Zelensky on what the EU and NATO were prepared to do, instead of all the hyperbole of doing 'whatever it takes.'

The Ukraine is not part of NATO, so NATO is not coming to its defense. Further, it does not seem as if the Ukraine was interested in joining NATO. The leader is someone who was taking the country into an open, non-allied direction, but for some reason Putin decided he needs to go, on grounds of being a Nazi, despite the fact that he's Jewish and the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

They've been systematically working with Ukraine for several years now on admission. It's a long road with several conditions to join, and Ukraine has been checking those boxes along the way. The best NATO could do now is fast-track it under free emergency provision.

To some extent, yes they do. But also, it's just too far, strategically, to be able to offer a meaningful defense by NATO, unless you post a few US divisions in-country, which (a) the US wouldnt do and (b) would be interpreted by Russia as an immediate prelude to invasion

Nothing can be rationalized by his actions now and in the past because he should never crossed that line. He broke it and now he alone owes it.