What do I now after building my home? Doing the garden. Okay what now?
Also a little bit like CK: he was musturbating in front of a few woman in the office and did not get spoken out.
He took the Crimea without real troubles perhaps this combined with him being allowed to poison people around the world and hacking the west gave him the feeling that he can just take Ukraine.
On his level he probably can't even just walk around in a crowd of people. That has to feel to him very unnatural.
If you have everything legacy might become your driving motivation. Unfortunately he doesn't think legacy could mean making as many life's good but territorial restoration.
The last time Russians found themselves in a similar position, NATO and the EU showed up at their doorstep. Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria... all of them joined NATO and/or EU in quick succession.
That's what I think Putin is trying to prevent. So the goal is to either have loyal buffer states (e.g. Belarus, Kazakhstan) or leave "unruly" buffer states (Georgia, Ukraine) in such state of destruction and disarray, that after Putin's death, Russia could get back on its feet before those states could focus again on entering international alliances. In other worlds, if I need 10 years to recover, I'll make sure you need 20 years, even if it adds a couple of years to my tally.
Of course this need of keeping NATO at bay exists only if the economic and political strategy of the state is to be an international gun for hire. It's a pity that the Russian elites decided to go for the easy buck with gas and military instead of developing the huge technical and artistic talent of the Russian people.
The irony is, after Iraq's invasion, NATO was incredibly unpopular in many European countries, and actions against Russia were seen as undesirable. I think fellow Europeans will agree that we saw Russia as an authoritarian state with old-fashioned values, but we were hopeful that one day we could have shared institutions and deeper political and economic cooperation. Now a lot of my fellow citizens perceive Russia as a direct enemy.
NATO and the EU did not show up at their doorsteps. Baltic and Eastern European states willingly joined NATO and the EU seeking better economic opportunities than what they had under Russian imposed communism and protection against future Russian aggression.
NATO didn't invade those countries under special military operations but those countries joined willingly since it was in their best interest and despite the EU's and NATO's faults, they're better alternatives than living in the fear of Russian aggression where the sate can imprison you for saying stuff against state approved propaganda and living in constant poverty and corruption.
Eastern Europe has ~50 years worth of scars to prove how vile such regimes were. That's why they were so eager to join NATO and the EU at the first chance they got and they flourished quiet well after that economically and socially. And Ukrainians wanted the same for their country since 2014, not living as Russia's puppet state forever.
But my point is, before the soviet collapse Russia didn't have a lot of shared borders with NATO countries. Now they do. If Ukraine, Moldova (who knows, maybe one day Belarus) end up joining NATO or the EU, this will considerably hinder their power projection capabilities. Expanding on McCain's analogy, Russia is a sketchy gas station where you can hire bruisers.
As if Russia is currently a bastion of stability.
It's only stable now because everyone is afraid of being gulaged if they speak up, similar to a lighter version of the purge in the Stalin days.
Putin isn't a startup founder. The man has no interest in leaving Russia and if you go and read his piece on the question of Ukrainian and Russian statehood[1] it's very clear that to him, Ukraine has historical and even spiritual significance. Going all the way back to the Kievan Rus he sees the three peoples of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia as inseparable and the emergence of, in his view, 'anti-Russian Russia' in Ukraine as a red line.
And I don't know why people keep this 'the world's richest man' meme alive but just because he always tolerated the oligarchs as a support structure for the state there was never any indication he cared a single bit about money. He always had aspirations to restore Russia to a great power, quite openly.
But then again, since you’re taking his ridiculous casus belli scribblings at a face value, there’s little I can do to convince you.
Similarly, it makes sense that he would selfishly prefer to be historically remembered as the guy who unified Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, rather than the most successful thief after the fall of communism. The citizens of Ukraine (and probably also Belarus) are not happy about it, but I guess the idea is that after being conquered and brainwashed and all dissidents thrown in jail, maybe their grandchildren will feel like happy patriots of the Greater Russia -- and if they won't, well, it's not like in Russia anyone actually cares about what people think (unless it is telling them what to think).
The citizens of Belarus have way less freedom of speech than even Russia, let alone Ukraine that's relatively free since 2014.
Russia has had, until recently, some forms of freedom of speech, at least on paper, while Belarus has none of that, not even on paper.
Putin wishes he had the authoritarian powers Lukashenko has in Belarus where he's been the sole dictator for the past 26 years.
Putin is basically a dictator but still has to go through a bunch of red tape to stay in power and pretend he's there though democratic elections and what not, while Lukashenko doesn't need to do any of that BS in Belarus, he's an absolute savage who doesn't even believe COVID is real and says "being a dictator is fine since it's better than being a homosexual".
So good luck being unhappy in Belarus and doing something about it.
His endgame is to prevent free democratic elections in Ukraine. He sees Ukraine as the country most similar to Russia. He wants to prevent elections in Ukraine, because what works in Ukraine will work in Russia. And the very last thing he wants is free elections in Russia.
If that's the case I doubt that it would have been done if the current outcome was known in advance.
I never understood what Putin's end game was here with this war, what can he earn extra of what he doesn't already have? He's already one of the world's richest men and he's already quite old. Couldn't he just like take his insane wealth and retire to some Caribbean island and live out the rest of his life in absolute luxury? Why did he need to start WW3 for? What does he stand to gain now? Seems like a stupid idea to become the world's most hated person when you were already set for a luxurious life.