All geopolitical goals are just an optional cherry on top of the main internal objective which is deliberately put Russians into besieged fortress survival mode to keep Putin in power.

Or as George Orwell wrote in 1984 about perpetual war in the totalitarian state: “The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.”