Europe did try to have good relations with Russia. All the while NATO (see the US) trampled all over the Russian leadership's red lines. Gorbachev objected to this. Yeltsin objected to this. Putin did too. Finally, in 2008, he took steps to act on these objections and ensure that the promised "NATO future" of Georgia was gone for good. He invaded, left two "republics" behind and left. More or less what he intended to do with Ukraine, only with the caveat that he needed to control the Crimea to have access to Sevastopol. Still, NATO continued to play dice with Ukraine's future and "leave open its NATO prospects". Ukraine should have either joined NATO on a fast track (so that Article 5 would protect it) or not at all. NATO had 6 years since the war in Georgia and 8 more after the annexation of Crimea. It should have committed fully on Ukraine's protection or have guaranteed its neutrality. This ambiguity was an invitation for Putin to invade, especially after the US demonstrated weakness by retreating the way it did from Afghanistan. That's how he perceived it, because that's how autocrats think. So it's one of two things: either the US leadership was naive enough to not believe that Putin would invade (again) or they left the door open on purpose to create a nice, lucrative little war and weaken Russia in the process. I don't think that anyone is that naive.