On the other hand, without heroes there would be no
...the United States of America which you happily escaped to from Poland (a country ruled by a totalitarian regime at that time).
Heroes don't only fight for themselves, but also for the future of their country and their people. You're benefiting from that fight which happened long time ago.
That is, he'd been planning the purge being carried out now (first of... how many?) for a while
I don't think it's about a purge, to be honest (of course I have no way of knowing that)... I do think that he planned "regaining Russian territories" for a long time probably... After all Russian media were turning Russians in Ukraine against the Ukrainian state and Ukrainians for some time before the annexation of Crimea... By that land grab he wanted to "mend the wrongs" after the fall of the Soviet Union, as he saw it (and maybe some or many Russians).
I think what prompted the invasion on Ukraine were probably two factors:
- the general situation due to pandemic (that was the immediate direct "trigger") - Putin probably thought that it's good timing to do this now because of the US and the EU and Ukraine being weakened by the pandemic and the resulting inflation, the societies being tired and scared... He probably thought that noone will care or do much about Ukraine in such circumctances.
- mass protests against Lukaszenko in Belarus scared him that similar thing could happen to him in Russia + protests of young people in Russia after Navalny arrested and sent to a labour colony.
And, of course, war is always a good excuse to tightening the grip on the freedom of speech and on the society. Rain TV, Echo of Moscow and Novaya Gazyeta all closed down (I don't recall such thing to happen ever before). There's no independent media in Russia anymore. And the curtain falls. The End.