"NATO this, but NATO did that"... look, Putin shills. Russia no a fuc*king USA. It's not global hegemon, no one looks up to you, no one asks you to police their backyard. Compare yourself to your peers. If it weren't for your oversized army and nukes, you'd be as relevant as Italy or Brazil, maybe Germany or Pakistan under fair weather. And those countries don't start a rumble by themselves, because "our sphere of influence, our feeling insecure"
Russian geopolitical thought is still stuck in early XX century. One, military might is much less relevant that it was even thirty years ago, and territorial squabbles are in large part pointless from the point of view of modern state power. Two, Russia seriosuly overestimates its soft power. "How will the global sport fare without Russia?" lamented head of Russian Olympic Committee. "But what is world's literature without Pushkin and Tolstoy?" cried Russian literates. "But Putin is the shining bastion of conserativism!" cry midless idiots, to whom conservative thought consists of bashing homos and trannies.
Well, fu*ck no. You're second-world country Russia, you may impress some Syrian tribals or African warlords, but rest of the world can get on without you just fine. Your don't produce anything worth of note, your economy is reservoir of natural resources - a slightly larger Saudia Arabia, that's what you are from economic point of view. Your culture didn't produce anything worth of note since Master and Margarita. Your involvement with sports is synonymous with doping, abuse and corruption. Even your Slavic 'brothers' have always wanted to get far away from you as fast as possible. And this war showcases that even your precious military is nothing more than the proverbial bardak, rotten by systemic corruption and general ineptness. And you dare to compare yourself to USA? I hope when this war is over, you at least realize that those Imperial notions you hold are nothing but silly delusions. And then you'll cry. Because you had thirty years to realign yourself, but instead, you'll end up as China's footstool, drained from your precious resources like no European or American corporation would drain you. But at least you showed those Americans, right! Right!? Oh right, Americans are sitting far away and laughing while you break your teeth on Ukraine, which you thought was just some inconsequental minor state. So much for great power.