Resources.
Russia doesn’t actually contribute anything to the world other than fossil fuels. Culturally, they never left the tsar phase (Even Soviet communist leadership covertly acted like tsar’s).
They’ve always needed vassal states to survive. A lot their Soviet era equipment and tech came from Ukraine
, arguably their strongest muscle from the Soviet era.
Now they want all those countries back, and are willing to rape and pillage any of them who fight back. Ukraine has been the most successful since Chechnya, Georgia, and Belarus have been somewhat re-absorbed.
Dumbasses with no face to face experience with this shyt were really believing the whole “NaTO iS TrYiNg HiM” and “ThEy’Re AlL nAzI’s” bullshyt.
They’re burning through what they basically consider to be “slave regions” throughout the country’s east. It’s just their culture to do it that way. When they get to the point of having to mostly conscript from the Moscow population it’s going to really become a problem.