All that was stage managed and a Show for the public Gallery
Sergey Naryashkin was Putins classmate in KGB Institute. When Sabchak became Mayor and employed Putin back in 92 He took Saryashkin with him. When Putin became President he again took him into the Presidential Administration where he rose and became Chief of Staff. He was one of the contenders to become a President together with Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev when Putin appointed him Deputy Prime Minister back in 2008.
Putin was using him to show some members of his Security Council even think He should Annex DPR and LPR but putin was not for it.
Everyone around Putin knew the Operation was going to happen in Feb after Olympics.
Russia is weak. Nothing can change that. They do not have an economy to sustain war against the major powers. Russians the ordinary citizen will suffer greatly from sanctions. Putin may have written his own obituary. His opened in Russia and outside Russia will no get resolve to take him on. He has lied to his people on reasons for his invasion.
He wrote his epitaph in Ukraine. Russia is nothing compared to USSR. And yet the USSR came down eventually "without a shot being fired". But even if he is removed, I don't see much hope for Russia. He will likely be replaced by another tyrant who knows not to get his fingers burnt.
There is something fatalistic about Russian ruling elites. At one point dictators get too sure of their own ability and delusion sets in. Mussolin, Stalin, the waterloo jamaa, Hitter, Gaddafi, Sadam after Kuwait invasion, Mubarak, Bashir..at one point I think the bell curve of power just starts a downward degrade.
They are megalomaniacs. That exchange he had with his intelligence chief was revealing for me. He just wanted him to agree with him, even if he did not understand whatever it was he was agreeing with. Putin is an insecure man wielding a lot of power - always a bad, if not deadly, combination.