[Itse]

I want to add that while I think Pointmans fear is irrational, most fears are pretty irrational. Emotions kind of by definition aren't super rational, and knowing how much Russian state media has played up the idea of needing to be constantly afraid of western aggression for generations, it's extremely human to feel that fear.

It's easy to say that "you shouldn't be afraid of someone bombing you", when you're not the one in danger if that happens.

(One massive tragedy here is that in reality, the western economies have really gone out of their way to not be the enemy of Russia. Western nations are driven by capitalist desires (or the desires of capitalists), and integrating Russia into the global capitalist system peacefully has for that reason been a major goal of western powers ever since the Soviet collapse. A major reason why everyone has been willing to look the other way when Putin has done the horrid crap he's done over the years was because the west just wanted SO BADLY to bring Russia into their fold, to have them as a partner at the table instead of an enemy.

All those international companies didn't come to Russia just so they could wait for an excuse to pull out dramatically.

Sadly it's a dictatorship and that was never beneficial to Putin. His only strength is in power games, so he keeps wanting to play adversarial power games. He is after all kind of a terrible economical and political leader, proven by the perpetually sorry state of the Russian economy compared to it's national resources, and would likely quickly get replaced in peaceful political conditions where things like trade relations and economic development were at the top of the people's mind instead of national safety.)