"...all Putin had to say to the US and NATO is that would lead to war..."
He did say. Multiple times. Even Stoltenberg admitted, that the Russian government reached out to NATO multiple times, trying to prevent this exact scenario that's playing out now.
Dozens of high level politicians, were aware, as far back as two decades ago, that NATO's eastward expansion would result in Russia having to intervene militarily at some point. And that's EXACTLY what happened. One of those people was a current director of the CIA, Burns.
"...and then he just did it - no ultimatum..." That's a lie. There have been plenty of negotiations that have been happening for months PRIOR to the invasion, on the issue of Ukraine specifically. Negotiations that continued after the invasion took place, in March/April 2022 and were sabotaged by NATO countries, as reported by Naftali Bennet (former Israeli PM), Gerhard Schroeder (former chancellor of Germany), and a bunch of other politicians. Including Ukrainian ones.
