This. If you were looking for a reason to support the war, that it goes against Russia's interests is a pretty good one. Reminding people of that seems unwise. Putin would be smart to distance himself from it, since he must know the American people dislike him and consider Russian interests to be a threat.

That the rational thing to do as a reader is to ignore his identity and examine his arguments is mostly irrelevant, since that's not actually what people do. I suspect it's a miscalculation.

Edit: minor changes for clarity