It is quite unprofessional to take Russian command structures at face value when they had been built by the KGB. For most people internationally, Wladimir Putin is the only Russian leading figure they can recognize by name and by his face. Some people may even recognize the foreign minister Lavrov at this point, but that is usually it. For many different reasons we get the appearance of a Stalin-esque singular ruler, who may or may not be deposed by others around him or just dies unexpectedly. Yet he may be a simple asset used by far more experienced KGB personnel who can strategically ditch him when it suits them to pretend a reset in leadership and to resume normal international diplomacy and trade relations. The first natural impulse for the KGB after 1991 would have been to obfuscate the actual true chain of command, create a variety of fake oligarchs and front companies and let the world play the guessing game. A war of the magnitude currently at play is always a careful imperial calculation: Where do we stand right now? What are we lacking? How do we get what we need? Where will we be 10 years from now? Is war more lucrative then peace? Can we afford peace at all? Even 2000 years ago Roman emperor Cesar carefully planned an invasion into Gallic territory, created a pretext, planned to kill a sizeable portion of Gallic men, planned to take the rest of those people as loot and to force Roman culture on to the Gallic territories. In the same way the Russian leadership prepared the Ukraine invasion for years and executed the plan to kill men, steal the rest of the people plus the territory plus the valuable industry that is essential to the Russian military industral complex and to force Russian culture and the language on to Ukrainians.
In public Russia has been spreading false narratives for why this invasion happened and even Western powers refuse to present a clear picture of the Russian imperial calculation, because that would create public pressure to understand since when Western powers had to be nearly certain or dead certain that this war would happen. It’s easier for Western politicians and media to focus on Putin’s personality, his personal grieveances and ambitions. Not only do we have to approximate the true Russian chain of command and imperial war calculation; we also have to take into account the balance of the three superpowers and their incentive to coordinate with each other to maintain their status. As much as the US and Russia trash talk each other, it’s always easier to settle than to battle it out indefinitely. We may even be looking at a cartel of the superpowers.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-bEqbl6uJ4