Can’t say about the latter, but the former is indeed the idea being peddled. In fact it’s been peddled loooooong before the Ukraine war. At least since the turn of this century, when the Baltics joined NATO. And it was this idea that was used to manufacture consent for the likes of Georgia and Ukraine to attempt joining EU/NATO. Nowadays it’s being used to scaremonger the still-not-joined countries, such as Moldova