It surprises and scares me how few people in the West understand this. It's because staring wars is how dictators cling to power, plain and simple. This is obvi

It surprises and scares me how few people in the West understand this. It's because staring wars is how dictators cling to power, plain and simple. This is obvious to anyone who follows Russian politics. There's even a term "Crimea consensus", referring to the fact that annexing Crimea made Putin super-popular again after he angered people with his clumsy return to the presidental chair. In 2022 his rating was at all-time low again. Yes, it's actually a bit more complex than that. Russia never stopped being an empire, it's codifed in their culture in many ways. Yes, there are personal inclinations of Putin. He said in his first ever interview when he got some minor post on SPB government that the Bolsheviks' greatest mistake was giving autonomy (however nominal) to the soviet republics. So those are the reasons too. What's not a reason in any way though is geopolitics. Feeling threatened by NATO, needing this or that resource, access to this or that body of water, fighting Western colonialism (!) - those are all bullshit reasons invented for propaganda.