I have watched Putin since his East German days.
He is intelligent, ruthless and power hungry. He has created an inner circle of like minded thugs and murderers who owe him all.
He will collect all of what he wants from them using whatever means necessary.
First goal - keep and expand his power base of citizen-victims from whom he can steal and whom he can murder with impunity.
Second goal - add more citizen-victims to his power base.
Third goal - re-assert Russian dominance over nearby citizen-victims in Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, some of Ukraine and perhaps the Baltics and the nearby former Soviet sphere.
Fourth goal - destroy Democracy wherever possible and install autocrats loyal to him. This goal explicitly includes the United States of America.
Fifth goal - be very quiet about it: by the time Democracies notice his actions it can be too late or too costly to reverse his actions.
What happens after Putin dies: Churchill had it right - “Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won.”
After Putin we will see another such fight and the result will be another power hungry thug; it will NOT be a Democracy.
Weep for the Russians, they do not deserve him.
