@Luckmcfly. Putin, in principle, does not need the territory of Ukraine, except that he wants to include Ukraine in his empire in order to take over its history and present the Kievan Rus period to the world as part of the history of the Russian Federation.
Putin wants to destroy Ukraine as a real danger to his autocratic regime. It is civilized, freedom-loving Ukraine that poses a danger to Putin, since its freedom of speech is a bad example for his empire, where every freethinker immediately goes to jail.
That is why Putin fails to seize Ukraine. He faced unprecedented resistance from a relatively small people, and this was predictable. Putin calculated by numbers, but did not take into account the spirit of the people, which he decided to conquer in the 21st century.