"We will not stop at Kyiv, Warsaw, Paris. We will stop when we feel secure."
What is security for Russia? The destruction of NATO?
Russia has been living in "counteraction and struggle" with external "bad enemies" for a very long time. This is how the Russian government consolidates society and explains all the problems to it.
Historically, their brand of propaganda is rooted in almost millennia-long trauma the Russian people have suffered since Genghis Khan took over Russia back in the 1200's, and other assholes have tried to invade them before.
Their way of dealing with it was to expand to have large swaths of land between them and anyone who'd try again. It's why Russia is the largest country in the world by land area but only small parts of that land are actually developed.
True. Still, history is history. I wish there was a way to heal the trauma of the Russian people so they stop submitting to dictators and acting like this.