With all his testing of borders Poland Estonia etc and latest cyber attacks on Europe... Is he trying to show a strong hand cause he about to sit down at the table????
This is just a brainfart... but I think he is trying to escalate.
About the only narrative that can save Putin when he loses Crimea is that NATO is now fighting on Ukraine's side. According to this narrative Russia never planned for nor intended to go to war with NATO in its attempts to resolve the 'root causes of the conflict'. Afterall this is just a SMO, Russia has never declared war on Ukraine.
What Putin needs is some hot action from NATO on enough Russians assets to make the narrative stick. Unfortunately, the Europeans seems not to want to play in this 'narrative sandbox'. At least not yet.
So I feel there will be a steady increase in Russian attempts to escalate with NATO countries. NATO as an organisation may not respond, but individual NATO countries probably will at some point. And thats enough.
Russia can't win. I expect Putin to know this now, so him and his cabal would be actively building an offramp suitable for domestic consumption.
But like I said, its a brain fart.