lol everythng is long winded because everything is complexities built upon complexitiesBelarus was nominally an autonomous republic in the USSR. Byelorussia had it's own seat in the UN. It was still on the puppet strings of Moscow much the way Lukashenko is Putin's puppet.
Okay, so that is your long winded way of saying Putin has not been waiting 20 years to make incremental progress in reconstituting a Russian empire. He's been working at it all along.
I dont doubt Putin's vision - he said as much, but his actions are determined by realpolitik-
and there is where we differ
Of course all of this is moot. the time for diplomacy was squandered/rejected/scoffed
As the saying goes "war is the ultimate failure of diplomacy" -and now everyone pays because of it