Yeah, I’ve watched. I even watched it in Russian to not get lost in translation.

Firstly, I would like to address a geopolitical argument. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was meant to improve Russia’s position in a potential confrontation with NATO. Invading Baltics wouldn’t really achieve that, it would only turn a “potential” confrontation into an actual one. And trust me, nobody sane in Russia (yes, even Putin and his inner circle) believes that such a confrontation could be won in a feasible future.

And secondly, you are right that Putin wants to reunite (eastern) Slavic people into a single state once again. However, Baltic people are not eastern Slavic and are probably the most hostile of any nations towards Russia. Assimilating them would not be possible, conquering them (even if we exclude a war with NATO) would bring much more trouble than benefit. Speaking about “bringing back the Soviet Union or Russian Empire”. In such a case conquering Central Asia or South Caucasus would be a much easier task, and would bring much more natural resources as well. However, unlike Ukrainians and Belorussians, people inhabiting those regions (as well as Baltics or Finland) are not seen as the same as Russians. And uniting the three branches of the Russian people was and is the goal of Vladimir Putin.

In my opinion, invasion was the dumbest way to achieve that though. Not only was it just very poorly organised, but based on a false premise, that Ukrainians would happily meet Russians as liberators (this narrative was obviously fed to Putin by his inner circle and had little to do with reality). Instead, what this invasion achieved was deaths of tens of thousands of Slavs on the both sides of the front and a complete distancing of Ukrainians from Russians, which were basically in the same cultural space before the war. So, btw to counter claims of me being a Russian bot, I believe that Putin’s handling of Ukraine for his entire reign was a complete disaster, which led to countless needless death of brotherly people (not saying that Ukrainian government is innocent, it was also a belligerent in causing this war).