All of which is very true.
The trouble though is that it assumes that the other side are playing it straight
What happens if the US claims that Russia is invading and starts to impose penalties as it if were, even if it actually is not?
What if the Ukrainian forces start fighting the Donbass militia and claim they are fighting the Russian army?
That actually is a stated and legitimate trigger for actual Russian intervention and so it would all rebound on Russia if they fail to respond.
What does have Russia to gain indeed?
What also does the US have to lose?
But why would America or Ukraine actively provoke the Russians to invade?
This whole thing started because Washington tipped their hand and showed Putin how desperately they want to avoid a war with Russia. This is because the new strategy directive in Washington is to drive a wedge between Russia and China and try to do a reverse Nixon and make Russia their new frontline cannon fodders against China in the name of white power unity. Can’t do that if they are fighting a war against Russia.
In a way, I think Putin is also looking to safeguard against fellow white power enthusiasts falling for that trick within Russia itself.
I think the primary aim is to squeeze NATO as hard as possible without triggering war to further expose their weakness to disenfranchise former Soviet republics who joined primarily on the promise of NATO being a credible deterrence against Russia.
Secondary objective is to sabotage aforementioned US plan to drive a wedge between Russia and China aimed both at the US and within Russia itself.
Tertiary objective is to profit from artificially inflated gas prices during the winter usage peak.
Finally backstop fallback option is going hot in Ukraine and seizing some territory. But this is very much a worst case scenario for Russia since doing so would undermine many of its higher objectives above and incur significant military, economic and diplomatic costs.
