One thing that I find deeply annoying about coverage of Russia-Ukraine is that nobody is speaking about the geopolitics. They're crucial if you want to understand Putin - who keeps talking about history and geography, not ideology
Russia's borders are flat terrain, it has no natural defensible borders, and its heartland is in the Western portion of the country. This is why it has historically expanded (and needed buffer states); this is why it needs a very large land army + 25K tanks. Geography matters
Tl;dr, Putin took a bad hand and played it badly, bringing Russia to this moment in history. He poses as the victim but he had 20 years to strengthen support for Russia among "buffer" nations. Instead he championed corruption and kleptocracy. Not a model masses love to embrace.
The geopolitical threat to Russia is real but Putin can't play a high-stakes geopolitical game badly for 20 years, lose (because he prefers kleptocracy/disinfo to transparency/soft power), and then come now and claim to be a victim. Did you lose? Yes. Are you a victim? No.
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