For this Russians this makes perfect sense. Their original country, the Russian Empire, was destroyed by bolsheviks and communists who gave territorial autonomy to various ethnic groups, from Luthuanians to Kazakhs. To a Russian imperialist, this is terrible.LOL, Exactly to the point! How not to like the Americans. I`m always surprise, how many people don`t really get the dynamics in Europe for the last 30 years. Soviet Union USED TO BE Russia + Ukraine + Belorussia + many more. The Rus-Ukr war is something like a back to past soviet civil war. Old thinking vs. New Thinking. Old Soviets vs. Current Reality in Europe. It seems , that Mr. P is really getting old and wants to have his young glory Soviet years back.
When he USSR broke away the Russian imperialists looked around and realised that the Russian empire has just been stolen from the Russian people and land given away to the lesser humans, like ukranians, Kazakhs, Latvians. And now they want it back.
Russian Imperial ambitions wil have to be crushed, economically and militarily. There is no other way.