> this more about their afforts to appeal to a certain part of domestic popularion

And yet, more than a million Russian lives alone were sacrificed to make the appeal reality.

Russia, like it or not, is actively busy restoring its older glorious days and unfortunately there is no sign of them coming anywhere near to a point where they can't sustain their losses any more. They're permanently losing upwards of 1000 soldiers per day, and that's not counting the injured, only deaths.