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Also, Japan attacking eastern Siberia ... why? It’s endless wilderness, frozen part of the year and mud and mosquitoes the rest, with barely any roads and (at the time) one decent railway. You have hundreds of miles to cover before you get to anything worth conquering, and your forces would be very thinly spread, hard to resupply, and easy for an enemy to break through.

[Also, Japan attacking eastern Siberia ... why?]

To prevent Russia from interfering with the Japanese conquest of China. Would the Russians have preferred to be the ones adding a gigantic new Far Eastern oblast? Probably.

The thing is - for the Japanese, helping the Germans overrun Russia was essentially inviting trouble. So they made sympathetic noises about the German effort against the Russians while doing just about nothing to help them. Khalkin Gol is something that both the Russians and the Japanese hyped up as an overwhelming Soviet victory - the Soviets because they needed a morale boost, and the Japanese because they decided they did not want Germany on the border of their Chinese possessions. The grim reality, from the Russian standpoint, was that the Japanese had fewer dead and missing than the Soviets despite both manpower and material inferiority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Aftermath
[Japanese records report 8,440 killed, 8,766 wounded, 162 aircraft lost in combat, and 42 tanks lost (of which 29 were later repaired and redeployed). Roughly 3,000 Manchu and Japanese troops were taken prisoner during the battles. Due to a military doctrine that prohibited surrender, the Japanese listed most of these men as killed in action, for the benefit of their families.[62] Some sources put the Japanese casualties at 45,000 or more killed, with Soviet casualties of at least 17,000.[33] However, these estimates for Japanese casualties are considered inaccurate as they exceed the total strength of the Japanese forces involved in the battle (estimated at 28,000–40,000 troops, despite Soviet claims that they were facing 75,000).[63] [11] According to the records of the Bureau 6A hospital, the Japanese casualties amounted to 7,696 killed, 8,647 wounded, 1,021 missing, and 2,350 sick, for a total of 19,714 personnel losses, including 2,895 Manchu casualties. The Kwantung Army headquarters and their records give a slightly different figure of 8,629 killed and 9,087 injured. The former Japanese Minister of agriculture and forestry estimated a total of 35,000 to 36,000 casualties [11] The Soviets initially claimed to have inflicted 29,085 casualties on the Japanese, but later increased this to 61,000 for the official histories.[2]

The Soviets initially claimed 9,284 total casualties, which was almost certainly reduced for propaganda purposes. In recent years, with the opening of the Soviet archives, a more accurate assessment of Soviet casualties has emerged from the work of Grigoriy Krivosheev, citing 7,974 killed and 15,251 wounded.[64] In the newer, 2001 edition, the Soviet losses are given as 9,703 killed and missing (6,472 killed and died of wounds during evacuation, 1,152 died of wounds in hospitals, 8 died of disease, 2,028 missing, 43 non-combat dead), 15,251 wounded, and a further 701 to 2,225 sick, totaling between 25,655 and 27,179 casualties.[65][16] In addition to their personnel losses, the Soviets lost a large amount of materiel including 253 tanks, 250 aircraft (including 208 in combat), 96 artillery pieces, and 133 armored cars. Of the Soviet tank losses, 75–80% were destroyed by anti-tank guns, 15–20% by field artillery, 5–10% by infantry-thrown incendiary bombs, 2–3% by aircraft, and 2–3% by hand grenades and mines.[17] The large number of Soviet armor casualties are reflected in the manpower losses for Soviet tank crews. A total of 1,559 Soviet “Tank Troops” were killed or wounded during the battles.[66] ]

Also, Japan attacking eastern Siberia ... why?

Remember...Japan did send troops to Siberia after Russian Revolution...