Towards the end, Jay brings up the issue of Ukraine's proposed membership of NATO being being a justification for the invasion and Kagarlitsky says it was irrelevant, that it was a propaganda justification, that the Russian government did nothing when Estonia which also borders Russia and is a short distance from St. Petersburg, joined NATO. Which is an interesting point.

Thanks for bringing that up. It was either Lavrov or Putin that commented recently on Finland and Sweden joining NATO and it was said RF does not like it, it will respond (as in treating it as unfriendly) but it does not have security concerns, unlike Ukraine where it does.

For example, I read elsewhere, that Finland was treated well, despite the fact that it participated in siege of Leningrad, where it was siding with the nazi Germany, for 872 days. Some described this siege as a genocide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad

After WW2 and after signing neutrality treaty with USSR, Finland prospered in trading with them.

Now, I take Putin/Lavrov's word at face value that Ukraine is a different kettle of fish and Boris considers it as propaganda. From my readings, he is wrong. The annoying thing is that he doesn't qualify his reasoning.