I have a suspicion of what is going on in Putin's head:

• 2021/early 2022, he thought his military was amazing and could take Ukraine in 3 days
• that went horribly wrong, russian tanks and other weapons exploded all over
• only two options: western weapons are incredibly better than russian weapons, or russian generals are incompetent
• fire generals left and right over 2022, it doesn't really get any better
• winter break
• 2023, the long dreaded Ukrainian counter offensive is coming
• West has given Ukraine only a handful of weapons, not enough for a sweeping, brutal offensive
• Ukrainian offensive stalls
• Putin's advisors show him the same destroyed Bradley and Leopard 2 tanks all over, from different angles
• "Holy shitballs russian weapons aren't inferior to western weapons, it really was just stupid generals, we really destroyed hundreds of NATO tanks"
• fuck yeah, with that sorted out I can take on the baltics and Poland