He eventually would have been forced to. Ukraine joining NATO and bringing American troops to Russia's border was a huge NO, NO.

Frederick Kagan said the composition of "invading" forces at the border conducting exercises for the past year was made up of individual BTGs picked from various Command structures across Russia. Normally you would move entire division/regiments so that the Command structure between low level units and management is preserved, allowing for agile action and precise commands.

Instead, these orphans were removed from parent Commands, and joined with ad hoc management. At the start of the war, this led to losing convoys, maybe 11k dead, 2.5% aircraft lost etc. All Invasion Command could do, was give broad orders for units to advance. They were overwhelmed and unable to react precisely and quickly to ground changes.

Why ? Why did Russia not move entire Command structures whole for the invasion ? One theory is that Russia was not planning to start a war. It was all intimidation. That's why they just bulked up their numbers. This is reinforced by the surrendering Russians who all say they had no idea they were starting a war. The border villages that were the staging ground also had no idea till the day the war started.

Seems Putin either got impatient or was forced to start the war. Propaganda build up to convince the population was also missing. Instead Putin's ministers were laughing at NATO for absurd predictions of an "invasion date". The Russian population was surprised. Hence the protests.