Speaking to an interviewer from Russian state media channel Россия 1, Col. Gen. Mordvichev says the quiet part out loud regarding the broader goals of Russian policy: namely that the ambition of conquering Ukraine is only a stepping stone to attacking the rest of Eastern Europe, a course of action which he presents as a necessity (“we will have to attack”).
I would opine that statements like these, brazenly uttered to domestic mass media by a senior military figure, are indicative of the realities of Russian ambitions: to revive Russian imperial domination of Eastern Europe by force of arms.
The way I see it is that the real problem is that they wanted to. Normal people don’t want to kill their neighbors and take their things, even if they could. This also applies to most countries. The fact that the Russians are thinking about invading other European countries is a problem by itself.