It’s one thing to say this about Chechnya or Crimea but then comparing it to a country of 40 million people. There simply aren’t enough resource that Russia can deploy against such a large country to maintain control. Chemical weapons or not. They couldn’t do it in Afghanistan what makes you think they can do it in Ukraine with a lot of support from the West? Putin has something like 80% of his army in Ukraine right now how is he going to roll over Poland and the Baltic states stretched so thinly. It’s not going to happen.