I'm always scared of such articles/narratives. Because they are internally consistent and seemingly explain the complex reality, they easily seduce rational readers giving them specious feeling of understaning.

In my opinion, this article has been written by an intelligent pragmatist that clearly has not lived in the Russia vicinity. I'm not arguing ad personam — I'm just stating that the article shows no understanding for the the Russian mentality. It's a common error to treat Russia as a Western country, while it... is not and never has been. Rationalizing the Russian behavior in accordance to their official statements is naive and historically made many countries suffer terrible fate.