But that is what your MSM is trying to convince people like yourself. There is no evidence of this, only assumptions.
It's pretty clear now that Putin's sole desire is to "re-unite" the old Soviet Union as the "New Russia" to establish his "legacy". All you need to do is to look at all the statements from his mouthpieces and his actions against other sovereign nations to establish the reality.
To be fair, this is actually the Chinese assessment, that Putin is trying to build a mini Soviet Union.
In further corrections to official Russian government statements: * Prior to his career as a KGB agent, Vladimir Putin did not work in the adult entertainment industry as some claim. Rumors of a lawsuit surrounding the patent ownership of a tiny dildo cast from male genitalia and named 'Little Volodya' are simply rumors, and the large number of polonium poisonings in the Moscow sex toy trade are unrelated. * In spite of efforts by the West, the economy of Russia is in perfect shape according to the latest report from Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. As plans to peg the value of the ruble to a basket of currencies including BlyaatCoin and Skee-ball tickets have worked brilliantly, the Finance Ministry has announced that the chocolate ration will be increased to twenty grams a week. * Yesterday's Very Special episode of the beloved children's show Blyaat the Caat, in which the cursing feline performed his sacred patriotic duty and enlisted in the army for the Special Military Operation in Ukraine was not a result of FSB agents storming the animation studio with guns drawn. The show's creators have also not been threatened with gulag should any further instructions to The Resistance be broadcast. * To the delight of motor enthusiasts, the 2023 Lada Granta is almost here. Featuring the beloved box body shape, a purring .5 liter petrol engine, a fully automatic one speed transmission, and the ability to go from zero to sixty meters per hour in under a minute, this automobile will stun the world and stand out on the racing tracks. Delivery of the first models will commence as soon as a supply of windshield cardboard can be found. * Claims that Ukraine has used tactics developed by the US special operations forces to delay our grand Special Military Operation are false. All delays have been caused by one carelessly smoking soldier named Ivan who has accidentally lit fires in twenty-eight separate Oblasts destroying two hundred and fifteen ammunition dumps, railway stations, command bunkers, Battalion Tactical Groups, tank divisions, airfields, and regiments of VDV paratroopers who were mid-parachute drop. Ivan has been disciplined and will be restricted to KP for the foreseeable future.
And so what if it was? What if every European country cropped up tomorrow and said "we used to own this or that or be part of an empire that owned it so are taking it back?" Maybe the muslims still own spain or the Vikings own Ireland. It's bullfeathers. Meanwhile Vlad sits there owning that whole eastern Siberia/Vladivostok area that they took from the Chinese as part of some gun-to-the-head treaty. Probably Xi will "correct" those borders at some point when he has sufficiently cowerd his Russian puppet state. When Putin gave his invasion justification speech he took some shots at NATO and the west. Okay. And who did not expect that? What was astounding though was the extent that he then went on to bash the Soviets and the Bolsheviks for being the root cause. You would think that that would implicate the Russians but in Putin's mind only he and the Prince of Kiev in 700 are/were the only true Russians. The other narrative that Putin tries and the west presents as one of his reasons for taking Crimea is that Crimea going to Ukraine was somehow some unjust outcome of the breakup of the Soviet Union which the west allegedly had a hand in and screwed the Soviet Union and/or the breakaway republics at every step. That also is bullfeathers. In fact the Soviet Union- longgggggg before the break-up in the early 1950's transferred Crimea to the administration and territorial jurisdiction of Ukraine. It was an internal soviet-to-soviet decision.