Sometimes it's just hard to make sense of it all @lizelle, and maybe the point I am missing is that there IS no "sense" here, just aging politicians who desperately want to do something that will make people build statues of them... but to what end?

The Russians tried this with Afghanistan, and ended up leaving after 9 years of not being able to "win" that war... with many casualties, their economy in shambles and the old USSR falling apart. Evidently, Putin doesn't read history books... there IS no "rebuilding the USSR," that ship has sailed a LONG time ago...