I'm not gonna be captain obvious and take the easy bait. But, Putin has telegraphed his 'dream' starting in 1999, when he said "the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the dissolution of the USSR." Not WWII, which killed half his family, and 30 million soviets. Nope. The dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Russian leaders have always been Imperialists. It's who they are. Putin didn't go to Gorbachev's funeral because he hated Gorbachev. Again, pretty obvious what he's doing, or attempting to do and it starts with Ukraine. He wants to build back a 5-7 million man military again. He cannot now, since the Russian population is too low. If he 'assimilates' or invades some former Soviet states, he then has more people/natural resources to pick from.
However, he will lose. Because, he will have to invade NATO countries to complete his dream of reconstituting the old USSR. If/when he does, it will be almost as short a war as the first gulf war. Russia has shown to be borderline pathetic as a ground force. Pathetic. All they can rely on is carpet bombing...and NATO would rule the skies in short order. He's already 'planting the seed' by stating in a recent speech the 'inevitable confrontation with the west'. His military is nowhere near the '2nd ranked military' that many assumed to be.
Before any of you clown Putin lovers come in and say 'NATO is threatening Russia'; no. Just no. Ridiculous statement at best. NATO has never and would never invade any country. It's only defensive. Now, if you Putin kneepad wearers want to say; 'Bbbut NATO is too close to Russia!!!' Well here's a violin. Too bad so sad. Those former soviet states wanted to join NATO for the very reason we are seeing every day...Putin the murdering coward will just invade who he wishes until his military is blasted to oblivion.
And make no mistake, Russia would lose in short order in a battle with NATO. If he launched nukes, well then Russia would cease to exist. As would most of the rest of us; let's hope he's not that stupid.