IIRC in 2010 Yanukovych was elected on a platform that would further pursue integration in the European Union but not in any hurry to join NATO though still involved with it. This was all referenced in the friendship thread IIRC.
Yeah, and this is where exactly the issue with NATO is. Yanukovych was very Russia-friendly and Donbass-friendly (other than for his corruption) and AFAIK did not seek NATO membership, and how did Russia respond to his friendliness? With reciprocal friendliness? No; rather, with a trade war and economic warfare:
Russian embargo of Ukrainian goods - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
In other words, the fact that Yanukovych was keeping Ukraine out of NATO and was friendly towards Ukraine's Russian-speakers was not enough for Russia back then; rather, Russia insisted on bullying and pressuring Ukraine to ditch closer ties with the European Union and join the Eurasian Economic Union instead--or at least not associate with either of these two blocs.
This is ultimately when it was clear that making nice to Russia won't do since Russia could simply always demand more. Yanukovych also extended the lease of the Russian fleet in Crimea until the 2040s and Ukraine subsequently got rewarded for this with the Crimean takeover and Donbass War:
Kharkiv Pact - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
And Ukraine got rewarded for giving up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s with a Russian invasion in 2022--after Russia promised in the Budapest Memorandum to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, a promise that Russia had already violated back in 2014!