What do you mean? You should have seen the surge of the Ukrainian culture in Ukraine after it westernized. After all, it's not the west that suppresses cultures in the region. If anything, it is the Russian regime.

So he doesn’t like the alleged “Ukrainization”, and certainly not an additional westernization (you know, with gay people and such).

That's a myth, a talking point in the Russian propaganda.

Everyone’s actions can be understood by realizing what they feel and believe. That doesn’t justify the actions, but it explains them. Trying to understand what Putin is about is important to making predictions about how he will react to possible courses of action from the rest of the world.

That's not all he wants. In the map[0] that Lukashenko accidentally(?) leaked today, Moldova is also marked for invasion.

[0] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1573902/Lukashenko-bela...

Beliefs like that are not standalone, they fit into a belief system. You can’t overturn them unless you overturn the whole belief system. Seemingly absurd beliefs can come about by the psychological necessity of keeping the belief system consistent. Putin’s belief system probably was formed during his KGB time in the 70s and 80s, and has continued to develop and has become stronger and harder to change since then. He’ll be 70 in October, unlikely to fundamentally change his mind at that age.

Putin referred, in his war announcement speech, to the USSR as a historical Russia, and blamed it's leaders for allowing it to fall apart, implying that reversing that was among the goals of his efforts; his idea of the “Russian core” appears to be the union of former Soviet and Russian Imperial territory (possibly not including the North American holdings, but who really knows.)