its colonization with Russian citizens

If you think this is the case then you've missed the point of this war from the Russian perspective. Russia could have swallowed Ukraine already had they intended to colonize the nation state. This is exactly what the west wants to happen. A colonized Ukraine means the west's intel goons can fill up the place with insurgencies to fuck up the country and destabilize Putin's political base. The Russian goal is and has always been to have a defensive perimeter to stop NATO from parking missiles on their door step and threatening to use them if they keep demanding fair market value for their oil and gas. Russia was content to leave the Ukrainian US run puppet government in power as long as they never officially join NATO. Since it's clear at this point the US intends to spend every drop of Ukrainian blood in order to break up and balkanize a defeated Russia. The Russians instead retreated to fortified positions to rope-a-dope the west into throwing every solider, arms and weapon system into battle to force them to exhaust the Western government's ability to wage war. Russia is effectively disarming the west by bleeding them white. Ukraine is losing ground as they can no longer field armies to fight off the ever present Russian forces. They are exhausted prey getting walked down by a patient and practiced predator. All the pressure is on the west to salvage the situation. Russia will continue to push the Ukrainian government to implode and put the country back together as they see fit without any great occupation the west is so fond of. The west will have no say in how Russia reforms Ukraine as they been systematically defanged and they don't have the forces needed to oppose the Russia in any real capacity. I expect great anguish and rage from the Ukraine's remaining soldiers redirected at the west in a series of terrorist attacks that we pretend we didn't see coming.

The message is quite clear -- "We are the Russians, resistance is futile."

The West is the Borg in this analogy. It's Russia that isn't following the west's hive mind of authoritarianism. The west has been trying to grind Russia into dust since the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. They came close to totally destroying Russia in the mid-90s, but they got greedy and forgot to break up the country when they had the chance. They are decades late to do anything to stop Russia from setting it's own political, economic and social agenda.

I guess Vladimir Putin was a big fan of "Star Trek : The Next Generation", back in the 1980's when he was an up and coming KGB agent in the Soviet Union. And, the concept of "The Borg" made quite an impression on him.

Do you have a source for this? It was a significant endeavor to just to get western media in Soviet Union. If the people in the Soviet Union wanted to listen to banned western music they'd have to get bootleg copies recorded on discarded x-rays. Where would Putin have even gotten the technology to even watch ST:TNG without getting caught with banned materials and video equipment? In the 90s I could see it happening perhaps.

Now, it's quite common, I've noticed, to compare the Russians to the "Orcs", from Lord of the Rings, these days, in the Western media.

Everything new is well-forgotten old. - Russian proverb

And, indeed, I'm by no means sure that J.R.R. Tolkien did not indeed have Stalin in mind with Sauron, and that Mordor was not the Soviet Union, in the mind of the creator of the Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings is Tolkien coping with his experiences in the Great War. The orcs are a representation of what happens to soldiers on the western front twisted by their leaders to commit atrocities great and small for nearly a half a decade.

They are not evil, but, actually, highly functional. It is a perfectly legitimate conception of society, although it sublimates the individual to the greater whole -- a conception that is anathema to the Western mindset. Of course, Westerners will submit to higher authority, if need be, for a time. However, they do so reluctantly.

This is straight delusional fart sniffing. The west has little to no real opposition to the oligarchy that has total control over the "free thinking" western dipshits. They have not done a damn thing to stop them from grinding the Ukrainian people into meat paste for the last ten years for "freedom". Westerners have ensured the Ukrainian people's slavery for generations and don't even know it. Eastern Ukraine has already been "sold" to Black Rock and nobody cares that every resource in eastern Ukraine will be drained into Black Rock's coffers. If the west wins in eastern Ukraine the citizens will become impoverished and powerless neo-serfs in their own land. If Russia wins loyal Ukrainians will be exiled from their homes if they have not already been churned up in the slaughter. The west has severe brain rot from repeating the same self indulgent narcissistic propaganda.

In contrast, in traditional China, in the Mongol Empire, and, in Russia, which learned so much from the Mongols, the conception of the hive mind is much more familiar, and much more acceptable. We really should bear this in mind, don't you think?

I don't think you read enough or listen enough to have a basic grasp history, politics, literature, or culture. Resorting to pop culture references that miss the mark entirely didn't work. Authoritarianism is bad. Wow. How profound. Another person lost in the weeds.