An opinion piece by Tatiana Stanovaya, a so-called expert on geopolitics as it pertains to Russia. She appears to be a pundit on the rise, building her brand with essays like this one. Nothing of value here, move along.
Western politician try to project their view of the word on the other party and fail to see the issue from other point of view.
People who have more intimate knowledge about Russia, for example Finns (1), can provide much more valuable insight. Especially so Russians with even more intimate knowledge about Russia.
(1) Martti J. Kari (former intelligence Colonel in the Finnish Defence Forces) gives a lot of insight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw
Complementary material from Western point of view by historian and Holocaust researcher https://snyder.substack.com/
I recommend to read especially this https://snyder.substack.com/p/russias-easter-offensive
Also Kamil Galeev from Russian Republic Tatarstan provides a lot of interesting insights https://threadreaderapp.com/user/kamilkazani
Perhaps the most interesting read from him is https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1516162437455654913.html