If you want to research this, the terms to look for is something like "Russian hybrid warfare goals and objectives in Europe" (can also try greyzone warfare).
Put simply, the goal is to add friction to anything NATO tries to do to aid Ukraine, and/or generally to improve its posture against Russia, while also trying to crack apart and erode both broad based and elite support for acting against Russia.
For example, here's a CSIS (American think tank) report: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-wes...
Put simply, the goal is to add friction to anything NATO tries to do to aid Ukraine, and/or generally to improve its posture against Russia, while also trying to crack apart and erode both broad based and elite support for acting against Russia.