The worrying news of forced deportation of several thousand Ukrainians from Mariupol to Russia simply supports your argument. This action mirrors Russia's ethnic cleansing of nearly 200,000 indigenous Tatars from Crimea in 1944. I believe Putin intends to depopulate eastern Ukraine, by driving out the inhabitants with his scorched-earth bombing campaign, deporting those who will not or cannot leave, and simply murdering the rest, then colonize the 'empty space' with Russian nationals. A horrifying shadow of Hitler's plans for 'lebensraum', cleansing and occupying some of the very same places that Putin is now coveting. Perhaps if he somehow succeeds in swallowing eastern Ukraine his monstrous appetite will be sated, somehow I think he will be perpetually hungry.