In a recent speech, the Russian president laid out the nationalist ideas that animate him — and helped cause the Ukraine crisis.
What Putin actually wants to stop, many analysts in the West believe, is not NATO, but rather the liberal democracy on his doorstep that contrasts with his own repressive state.
Ukraine "had this simple idea that they wanted to have free and fair elections and not have people in Moscow telling them what to do," Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said on MSNBC Thursday. And now Putin "wants them to pay the price."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-invasion-putin-war-warning-us-nato-rcna17497