When you’re a country on the other side of the world and you’re trying to put troops in place to surround a country you’ve arbitrarily decided is your “enemy” then that’s a clear, open threat.
The US already had bases closer to Moscow and St. Petersburg than Ukraine! As soon as Russia invaded Crimea, the US stationed a shitload of troops in the Baltic states that are part of NATO. Every part of Ukraine’s further from Russia’s center of power as compared to the deployments of Operation Atlantic Resolve.
There’s not a damn thing that Ukraine would do to benefit the US militarily other than securing non-Russian nuclear plants to provide power to the EU. Russia is going after a war of retribution and hydrocarbon imperialism for leaving it’s sphere of influence.