Could I add one thing, because I am not reading the same thing that Mr. Robinson is reading?
In a very well-known and publicized article titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, on July 12, 2021, way before February 2022, Putin wrote:
...when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people—a single whole.
Then he disparaged Ukrainians by saying that, in his history books:
The name “Ukraine” was used more often in the meaning of the Old Russian word 'okraina' (periphery)...referring to various border territories. And the word “Ukrainian”...originally referred to frontier guards who protected the external borders.
That is how much Mr. Putin loves the Ukrainian people. He thinks that Ukrainians were border guards or frontier guards who were protecting the external borders of Russia, and he does not recognize the Ukrainian people as a people.