Hmm, Russia Today is reporting about celebrations in Donetsk and Lugansk because of this decision: https://www.rt.com/russia/550172-donetsk-lugansk-recognition-celebrations/ meanwhile western media and leaders as well as other parts of Ukraine are condemning this move.

From what I understand Putins' decision is not too surprising. Ukraine has cut off the separatist controlled regions. This means for example it does not provide any pensions and apparently it'd be pretty hard to even get into other parts of Ukraine from these areas even if you wanted to. That's why Russia recently started handing out passports. The percentage of ethnic Russians in this regions is pretty high, so a lot of Russian citizens live there now. With growing tensions and more and more armed conflicts this put Putin into a bad spot. After his previous decisions he hardly had a choice but to protect his citizens. So the first thing they tried was to evacuate them. But only few people actually left for Russia. Thus the current decision.

This is not meant to apologize for any transgressions but merely to state that this was somewhat predictable and I can understand why Putin would act like this.

Something that is being brought up even more frequently now is a full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I do not see the point in that. What's in it for Russia? I think Putin would be much happier with Ukraine as neutral buffer to other NATO members like Poland. Does the Ukraine have any natural resources? War is very expensive and Russia spends relatively little money on its military.