Really? I simply do not understand how you can come to this conclusion about his ego being the driver for him wanting to "reconstitute... the USSR".
More and more of the comments on FR about this issue are seemingly so emotionally driven. It's challenging to have a discussion given this.
He's flat out said that "Ukraine is part of Russia, we are one people, etc.", which is no different an argument than the British could have made in 1812 to re-subjugate the colonies. The Ukrainian people, as a whole, absolutely do not want to be ruled by Russia.
All the talk about corruption, the NWO, the Great Reset, etc., don't matter to me one bit, because the groups supporting Russia in this are at least as bad. This is about one nation choosing to conquer another nation simply because it can, and killing large number of people to make it happen. Simple as that.
And just to point out, I understand that Russia claims this is justified. I -- and apparently a lot of other people -- believe that it isn't. Russia's (or maybe just Putin's) subjective belief in its/his own righteousness doesn't change reality any more than did the beliefs of Napoleon or any other conqueror throughout history.