No link, but, it’s easy to guess what Putin has been up to when he consistently hinted that, he would reconstitute the Soviet Union. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that his plans included countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union.
“No link, but, it’s easy to guess what Putin has been up to when he consistently hinted that, he would reconstitute the Soviet Union.”
Actually, he said the Soviet Union was horrible, but its breakup was also horrible, as it stranded 10s of millions of Russians outside of what became Russia, due to the artificial internal borders of the Soviet Union.
And Putin did say that he dreamed of a bringing all of the Russians back into an enlarged Russia, which is consistent with the Ukraine operation.
But that is still far different than bringing back Ukrainians and Poles, for example as they hate Russia (and Russians) and Putin knows it, and wants nothing to do with them.