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Actually, they'd just stop there and not go any further. They had specific reasons for getting involved in the Ukraine that aren't there for Poland and the Baltics. I don't even think they're going to want to retain control over Ukraine in the end either - I think they're going to want to turn it into a thoroughly dysfunctional rump state that's utterly unable to credibly threaten Russia or prevent them from interfering in internal domestic affairs.
If you want an example of a military force that forcefully seized territory and was then emboldened to claim more, you're going to have much better results looking at the Middle East - who owns the Golan Heights again?
Who owns the Sinai?
Besides, the salient fact about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t that it was considered strategically necessary by a solemn council of Russian foreign policy elders. It’s that Putin, in his own writing and speeches and interview (eg Tucker) clearly considers part of a multigenerational plan to restore Russia to greatness that has no clear territorial bounds, and which might reasonable include at least some more of the Russian Empire of his youth and early employment, which stretched all the way to the West German border.
At the least pacifying the Baltics would be very much strategically valuable and I think it’s ridiculous to suggest he hasn’t thought about it.
Could you please provide some examples and quotes of Putin talking about his desire to Make Russia Great Again by bringing back the empire? I've read multiple interviews and talks with him and don't recall him making similar claims in any of them. I'm entirely willing to believe you, I just want to see some evidence - most of the sources I've seen describing Russian politics in this area believe that Putin is actually more restrained and less eager for conflict than most of the people waiting in the wings behind him.
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