I don't know enough about the situation to say as a definite, but it feels like this is a show of how powerful he portrays himself, when I'm not sure how much power he has at the moment, considering the hit his country's economy is taking right now. The sort of power strokes that someone makes when they know they are losing power.

But then again, Russia has always been on the 400 year world domination plan, so you never know what the plan is, what power really means, etc. I might be way off in left field.

For all we know There could be a board of shadowy figures that Putin is just a puppet of. Maybe they see the current economic sanctions to be of no concern (and they're mostly correct), maybe this is a scare tactic to keep US and Nato weapons out of Ukraine, maybe this has nothing to do with international politics and all to do with reminding the Russian people who's boss.

I agree, it's definitely going to be a hard decade to be Russian. But then, it's always a hard decade to be Russian, especially if you live outside one of the major centres.