Given that Putin is clearly isolated from reality, it's curious to assert that "he's not daft." In fact, he's almost certainly (i) delusional, and (ii) far from being in his right mind. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, to borrow Acton's aphorism. Secondly, it is worthless speculating on Putin's motives. All that matters is the reality. And that reality is rather depressing: the West once again failed absolutely to understand an existential threat when it arose and failed absolutely to take the necessary action. Russia is a military joke, but that's irrelevant when NATO isn't even a joke but merely a passive observer. We're too busy eating ourselves to death both literally and figuratively in the West to understand that Putin's eventual victory in Ukraine means the last shreds of the old Western-created structures that have operated since the end of WWII are evaporating and will be replaced by good old-fashioned wars of conquest between neighbors once more. Putin foresaw none of this; he simply smelled our rotten flesh and believed he could, like Hitler before him, come and feast on the carcass. He was right about us in the West but wrong about Ukraine - yet in the end his error won't matter because without Western support Ukraine can't withstand the endless human wave attacks and endless Russian barbarism. Meanwhile in the West we will continue to see the pro-Kremlin Farages, Le Pens, Trumps, et al doing Putin's work for him.