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Even having US interests close to the border would serve as quite a deterrent in my opinion. It also gives Putin an out because it wouldn't be troops on their border.
I'll start by saying I'm not being a mind reader of Putin, but I would be surprised if he went for this. My gut feel it there would have to be a lot more concessions in terms of a DMZ on the Ukrainian side for anything like this to even be considered, and I'm not sure if you could even have an ascension into NATO if you're in that type of agreement. It would be in Ukraine's interest in this case to goad Russia into a conflict so they could invoke Article 5. I think this would apply in the case of NATO or just unaffiliated troops.
...also just a guy on the internet...
How true is this, really? Off the dome, I can think of at least two cases where governments have nationalized American interests and gotten away with it (Cuba, Venezuela). Economic interests don't seem to guarantee immunity.
Sure, I'm not going to argue with that. I think the argument made elsewhere that I'm just repeating is that it gives at least a deterrent, as well as casus belli if they were literally attacked.
It feels rather different to be nationalized than to be taken by an armed force. In the hypothetical world where US companies were operating on the Ukrainian frontier, I would very much doubt that whoever is running Ukraine would nationalize those operations.
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It’s very unlikely Putin would agree to any deal that allows Ukraine to join NATO. That’s the whole reason he started the war in the first place, and he would be better served just continuing to grind on if that was the offer.
I think he might concede to a Kievan rump state being granted NATO admission if he was given maximalist territorial claims. For obvious reasons this probably is not a great deal for Kiev.
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