Not to complain about voting, but interestingly, I've advanced this theory multiple times on multiple venues and it gets downvoted without comment each time. Can't anyone actually come up with a counterargument, just for discussion's sake? Or simply ask a question that the proposal doesn't answer adequately?

I can't think of such a question, and apparently neither can anyone else. The only admissible conclusion is that Putin wants to turn Russia into North Korea.