My original point had nothing to do with NATO and whatever the concept of West constitutes. And it wasn't worth creating separate thread to discuss.
All what I did was replying to a poster who claimed that Russia attacked Western country during WW2 (meaning Finland), while Western countries never attacked Russia.
I answered that if you consider WW2 Finland as Western country, Nazi Germany also falls under this definition. And claiming that the West never attacked Russia in this case is ridiculous.
TBH, setting the word first aside, I've some sympathy for this point. I think it is an issue of semantics overlapping with identity/ identification.
For many in "the west", the west = NATO = fighting nazi's. Countries reconstructing their identities post USSR, post the trauma of reconstructing themselves as SSR's in the first place. Being "not nazi" is a focal point of their self-identification. When the Germans became "us" rather than nazi they ceased being "other". As Bob Dylan put it -
The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now, too
Have God on their side
The Russians didn't have the same process. Didn't identify themselves around the same cultural signifiers. The Russians also identify as the "not-nazis".
Both sides look at the other and see disturbing echo's of nazism growing. For my part the Putinist fascism scares the socks off of me, but my opinion would doubtless be different if I lived in St Petersburg. Now I completely disagree with the nonsense coming from Russian propaganda, but I can understand that both sides have a core identification with being the not-nazis.
For what it's worth the rest of Dylan's song ends -
I've learned to hate the Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side
But now we got weapons
Of chemical dust
If fire them, we're forced to
Then fire, them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side
Through many a dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ was
Betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war