system
A chat on subreddit /r/wallstreetbets
human
Historically speaking Russia has always been freaked out by its neighbors and sought to control buffer states next to it. Couldn't tell you why but all sorts of pre-WW2 historians would tell you the same. I doubt this has changed and so I wouldn't be surprised if it just tried to prop up proxy govs  in places like Ukraine and so on rather than trying to directly annex them.

gpt
I agree.