Putin seems a little dense to me

If Vladimir was really going to do a sneak attack, then why does he telegraph his signals for months ahead of time?

Telegraph: The commander of the US army in Europe has warned that Nato must remain united in the face of a "real threat" from Russia.

"It's not an assumption. There is a Russian threat," Lt-Gen Frederick "Ben" Hodges said.

"You've got the Russian ambassador threatening that Denmark will be a nuclear target if it participates in any missile defence programme. And when you look at the unsafe way Russian aircraft are flying without transponders in proximity to civilian aircraft, that's not professional conduct."

Gen Hodges spoke to the Telegraph on the sidelines of a military debriefing after an exercise to move live Patriot missiles 750 miles across Europe by road and deploy them on the outskirts of Warsaw.

The sight of a US military convoy crossing the German-Polish border more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War made international headlines and brought traffic to a standstill as people posed for selfies beside the troops.

The intention of such a highly visible deployment was to send a signal, Gen Hodges said.
"That's exactly what it was about, reassuring our allies," he said.

I get that Russians are under an existential threat, but that is mainly from living too far north and drink too much vodka.  So Vladimir sends his little airforce running around protesting the miserable state of Russia, as if what?   And considering the web, I doubt he can fool the Russian people for very long.
Here is the problem that the Russian airforce is tying to fix:

So what is NATO supposed to do? Invade and have sex with a bunch of Russian women? I mean, that is the only explanation I can come  up with.

As far as the Ukraine, here is their problem:

Much worse? So how does this work?  It seems to me, the Ukranian desire to join NATO, and the Russian desire to get screwed by NATO have something in common.