Yea, there are a lot of moving pieces there for sure. I'm not sure how you can believe NATO moving forces onto Russians border in such a strategic location would not be considered a threat.
The threat is not having a NATO member on their border, which as I pointed out they already enjoy. Granted, not as strategically placed as Ukraine might be, but it's not nothing.
The threat Putin is responding to here is to their government's economic well-being which relies massively on their government control of the energy sector and the fact that Europe is hungry for that energy. They cannot abide a potential competitor for Europe's energy money. This is using military force to protect market share, not trying to keep NATO from marching on Moscow.
Western influence/control of Ukraine's energy having the potential of savaging Russia's GDP isn't considered a Russian security concern?
You're missing the point. That doesn't require Ukrainian NATO membership at all. For that matter, it doesn't even require Western influence. Simply a Ukrainian government that cares about Ukrainian interests ahead of Russian.
Ukraine had placed significant tariffs on Russian gas pumped through their pipelines, so Russia decided to build around them.
Significant natural gas fields offshore of Crimea were seized by Russia when they annexed Crimea thereby cutting Ukraine off from most of their offshore reserves in the Black Sea.
Ukraine begins to develop their shale oil fields - most of which are found in eastern Ukraine where - surprise, surprise, Russia decides to set up a couple of breakaway puppet states and then invade.
The problem is not the West pushing NATO on Ukraine, it is Putin being frustrated that a non-puppet Ukraine could cut the state-owned energy companies off at the knees. It was a non-puppet Ukraine that legitimately feared Russian aggression that sought protection from NATO and now the EU.
I'm no fan of Putin or Russia but the more I look into this the more it looks like it is the west who has insisted on pushing the issue.
I'm not blind as to the US having terrible, inconsistent, and often counter-productive foreign policy. However, I don't think this conflict had beans to do with NATO or the west.