Exactly, if Putin really worried about protecting borders, he'd never move most of his Asian army units to the Ukrainian border, exposing huge vulnerability to

Exactly, if Putin really worried about protecting borders, he'd never move most of his Asian army units to the Ukrainian border, exposing huge vulnerability to the powerful autocratic nuclear regime who actually kinda wants these exposed lands. The fact that he did it means that either he really believes that NATO is scheming on invading Russia proper, in which case he's just gone mad, or all this pseudo-historical pretext is just a bunch of crap he feeds the world to legitimize his personal quest for glory and give his worldwide supporters ("useful idiots" as they call them in KGB) a reason to let him off the hook for that.