If he said for example a day earlier "I will attack" NATO countries could have moved a few troops to protect their embassies pre-emptively, which would have likely been a very shrewd de-escalation, as attacking NATO troops directly would have risked an unintended escalation.

After he has attacked, he has the initiative, and can threaten ww3 if any NATO troops enter the combat zone, and a few troops are not much use anyway.

Timing.

He clearly misdirected Ukrainians.

> 'Negotiations as misdirection' makes literally no sense. Who would he be misdirecting? Nobody is coming to Ukraine's aid.

The US waited until the actual invasion began to impose serious sanctions. Misdirecting for a few days could easily have bought Putin enough time to make arrangements for both his personal and national finances. That's idle speculation on my part, but it doesn't seem terribly unlikely.