He has to rattle his sword here and there so they won't think he's going soft.
Rattling one's sword is better than sh*itting in your pants which is what the Americans would do if they saw the Russian navy 13 miles off of Key West.
After the clean-up, they would bring the world to the brink and make a lot of speeches at the UN. Later, to show their machismo, they would bomb the defenseless Serbs.
Weasel - a weak loud mouth that does nothing when Russia organizes a peaceful and well-supervised referendum and walks away with a nice chunk of very strategic real estate.
Full disclosure: I respect Putin more than I do Biden and like that so-very-unAmerican bridge from somewhere to somewhere.
As far as itching, it's the West with its encircling that is itching. Can you spell Warsaw Pact? I wonder what happened to it...Hmm...Oh, it got dissolved but it's Russia with all the embargos that has the itch. Sure.