Your statement is acounter factual. We can never know if Poland and Hungary would have done better NOT being in NATO.

Post 2014 Ukraine was defacto NATO. Over $3,000,000,000 in NATO weapons, permanent NATO bases, rotating US and UK troops training a battalion a month of Ukraine troops to NATO standards, CIA agents working nearly openly (the UK has actual troops on the ground now). Zelenskyy called for Ukraine to get nuclear missiles two weeks before Russia invaded in 2022.

The US backed the coup in 2014. Nuland caught on a recording picking the new govnernment heads. Biden bragged about being able to get a UKR attorney general fired in 6 hours (on video). The US has been calling the shots in Ukraine since 2014.

Ukraine was neutral (yes, corrupt, but neutral) prior to 2014. Yanukovych balanced Ukraine's interests between Russia and the west. The US forced him to choose a side. He almost went with the EU, but Russia made Ukraine a sweetheart deal. The US couldn't accept losing, and supported literal Nazis to push an violent coup to oust Yanukovych.

Prior to the 2014, Russia did nothing militarily in Ukraine since Ukraine's 1991 independence. Russia was paying rent for their military base in Crimea, and had an agreement until 2042. Ukraine made as shitton of money pumping Russian gas through their country.

It is (IMO) much more honest to say that Ukraine is suffering from US interference and thuggery than from Russia's.