My reading is that Putin is barely aware of the rest of Russia and has no interest whatsoever in what's happening outside of his own immediate circle. As long as there's food on the big table, important people keep turning up to meetings, and he can't hear shooting or sirens, it's all good.

He's high on his Dugin-inspired fantasy of a glorious new empire stretching from Ireland to India, and he's playing with toy soldiers towards that goal. It's more of a LARP based on a Dugin's Geopolitics than a real campaign for him.

As for what the West should do - No Fly signs are too weakly defensive while simultaneously being too confrontational. It's probably too late for this, but sneaking them some conventional cruise missiles across one of the Southern borders and Ukraine ("Look what we had in reserve!") using them to halt his Epic Show Convoy would very possibly do the job.

Morale and organisation are terrible, and most of the Russian army very much doesn't want to be there. It's all very fragile, and a good counterpush might be all it takes to pry it apart.

Of course the West shouldn't have done Iraq etc. And certainly been more defensive about Russian mafia money and info-ops.

Now we have monkey see, monkey do, and a mad dictator with atrocity envy saying "If you can, why can't I?"