I don't think that anyone honestly knows the end goal, but you point to a lot of the problems with a full-scale Russian invasion. Although there are Ukrainians sympathetic to Russia in the eastern part of the country--Ukrainians who openly self-identify as Russians or who use "we're one people" language--there is a lot of hatred toward Russia in the central and western parts of the country.
This isn't 2014 anymore, when Putin enjoyed almost universal support among Russians for his invasion of Crimea.
But on the other hand, I don't know how we can ignore Putin's reputation for machismo. How does he remove his troops from the border and not look weak?
Your second paragraph is close to the target.
Vladimir Putin said that the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was the worst event of the 20th century. (At least from the Russian point of view).
He has longed to be the man who rebuilt the Russian empire and its sphere of influence.
Given the shaky state of the Russian economy and its’ continued dependence on petroleum exports for hard currency, he’s been remarkably successful.
He was able the engineer a grand spectacle in 2014, a massive Olympics that made Russia shine temporarily in the world. Temporarily, because Putin followed that up immediately with a surprise attack on Crimea.
Which brought sanctions. (the sanctions that Trump wanted to cancel).
Indeed, you can see the effects of the Russian agitprop campaign on this very thread, as reactionaries repeat the Russian pronoted line about Hunter Biden.
In late 2018, with the help of his American friend, Putin was able to consolidate his hold on Crimea, and the Americans further helped out by abandoning their presence on Syria. Russian flags went up over American bases, and the program of bombing and gassing civilians in Syria accellerated.
Through all this, Russia has waged successful social media agitprop campaigns in many countries, but especially in the United States and the UK.
The objective in both countries was the same. Divide the US and Great Britain internally and from each other, with the goal of undermining NATO and the EU, thus eliminating the bulwark that stood against Russia since 1945.
The Ukraine crisis is the next step.
Putin’s objective is to undermine NATO and get them bickering over what to do. He wants to exploit the anxiety that most of the EU has over the reliability of the United States.
And, even though the Biden Administation has been proactive in stepping up to be the leader of the Western Alliance, years of mistrust built up over the Bush and Trump years, makes that job a lot harder.
The politics and rhetoric that Putin is engaging in is not significantly different that what the Nazis did in the Czech crisis of 1938.
They have manufactured a mythology of oppressed Russians in Ukraine for domestic consumption.
And Putin is comparing himself to Stalin while beating his chest.
They have bullied, blustered, and called themselves peacemaker in the bargain.
They have done everything they can to sow division between the US and its allies, and have done everything it can obliquely to bully and threaten the former Warsaw Pact countries.
That part isn’t really working .Poland just announced plans to double the size of its military. There are other signs of strength against the Russian bear as well.
Ukraine wil be too big a pill for Moscow to swallow. It took the Russians nearly five years to regain control over Ukraine at the end of WWII, when it had a well equipped and large army to do it with.
All Putin will be doing is buying an invasion and civil war that will sap Moscow’s renounces in a way that will make the Afghanistan invasion of 1980 look easy.
But Putin wants his empire back. And his Russophile base is with him.