The Occasional Observer

While I hate to be pessimistic, I do think there's an obvious solution that presents itself to the Russians regarding NATO expansion.

Break NATO completely.

This could be done relatively easily, from a military standpoint.

Invade Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In a week they'd have the 3 Baltic states firmly back under Soviet control.

Then the Tsar could look over to Brussels and say, "et tu, NATO?"

Think Germany, France and Brown's UK are willing to fulfill their NATO obligation and launch a conventional war to liberate the Baltic states?

If not, and I'd say it's a 50/50 proposition (and only that high b/c we would refuse to accept an abdication of our NATO responsibilities--but would still be unlikely to go to war unless our major European partners lived up to their part of the deal), then NATO is effectively a paper tiger. Offer membership wherever you want, if Russia can ignore it why would the Ukraine bother signing up?