TBH I don't think he was talking about communism and economics. He was arguing that culturally similar people should be under one government, as it was during the Soviet Union and before it. Even Tucker pointed out this is the "Ukraine is not a real country" speech and tried to stop Putin but he kept on going.
Putin was just repeating the points he laid out in his essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians".
On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians - Wikipedia
Article by Vladimir Putin ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“ • President of Russia (kremlin.ru)
I think very few people who aren't Russian would sympathize with this historical approach. Times have changed and it appears that at least middle aged Ukrainian men in the West-Central parts of the country are prepared to die for their independence, while former Ukrainian peoples of the South and East are prepared to kill them to prevent them from joining the Western fold. Meaning while young men and women have escaped the country in the millions to either the West or Russia for a better life and to escape conscription.
It's a Civil war that Russia is as guilty as fueling as the United States & NATO.
In that first hour I found it strange as it undiplomatic and unsympathetic to western audiences- or maybe Putin was focusing more on what the domestic Russian audience would prefer to hear?
Besides invoking the historical argument he also threw shade at Biden as being unimportant in the grand scheme of things and blamed the entire war on the US-NATO aggression.