Varför hotar Ryssland så mycket, medan väst hotar inget? Kulturell fråga?

War of memes: why Z-war won't end with peace
Some Western analysts unfamiliar with Eastern European cultural context perceive Z-war as an accident. They presume that Russian invasion results from some sort of "misunderstanding" or mistake which can be resolved via negotiations.

Z-war happened because Russia never accepted existence of Ukraine in the first place. And by "Russia" I mean not only the state, but also the people, especially the cultural elites. It was the so much glorified cultural elite that prepared this war rather than ignorant masses.

They argued or implied that Ukraine is a fake nation with fake/inferior culture and history. In other words, the real problem is that Ukrainians stick to inferior memes. Worst of all, they could have upgraded and accepted superior, Russian memes, but they refuse to.

Why Do So Many Russians Say They Support the War in Ukraine?
“Surveys don’t show what people think, but what they are ready to say, how they are prepared to carry themselves in public,” Denis Volkov, the director of the Levada Center, the country’s premier independent polling and research organization, said.

Even before the war, Russia was not the kind of place where you willy-nilly shared your political beliefs with strangers, let alone with those who called out of the blue. That tendency, forged in the Soviet period, only intensified in recent weeks, with new laws that criminalized “discrediting” the Russian military, spreading “fake news,” and making any mention in the press that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was war.