I do agree that in retrospect, the war doesn’t make much sense for Russia. As the article speculates, Putin must have thought that Ukraine was weak enough to be conquered in a matter of weeks, and that the west wouldn’t intervene, since it also didn’t intervene in the case of Crimea and Donbas.
I have a couple of questions.
How much weaponry was there in Ukraine prior to the war, NATO-supplied or from elsewhere, that could directly threaten Russia?
Next, going to war over the protection of Russian-speaking diasporas is a nice ideal, but it does not immediately translate to practical terms. I am willing to accept the idea that Russia risked losing everything by trying to protect Donbas Russians from Ukraine, but so far, the only signs of any Ukraine aggression in the region that I recall is the banning of Russian language and the shelling of separatists, who themselves shelled the Ukrainians. I also find the effectiveness of the takeovers questionable. Are Russians truly better stewards than the Ukrainians, all documented events considered? I truly do not know enough about this to make the right judgement call. Also not to mention the inversion of the idea - what about the Ukrainians in the Russia-occupied territories? Are they doing well too?
I am somewhat doubtful of the other things you have said, but I am unsure how to properly address them, so I suppose I will do some more research into the situation instead.