Is Putin listening to western leaders or just pretending?

As the world waits for catastrophe in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is at least agreeing to see or speak on the phone to all manner of political VIPs from the West to talk to him about not invading. Does it mean he is actually hearing what they are all saying - including this coming week from Boris Johnson who is due to ring him - or is he just playing a game and chuckling to himself? I doubt he needs advice or appeals from anyone. He knows what he is going to do, invade or not, probably the former in one form or another. So what is the point of all this telephone and shuttle diplomacy? Putin has surely got the message by now that if he invades Russia, his closest mates and possibly him too and the whole Russian economy are going to take a massive sanctions blow and thousands of Nato troops and fancy equipment are going to start arriving in Eastern Europe as a deterrent, likely to stay for the foreseeable future if not for ever. So what it's really about is Western leaders and key ministers getting involved to demonstrate at some point in the future that they did all they could to persuade the Russian leader to stop being an aggressive hoodlum and pull back his troops from the border with Ukraine. What they don't want is for some nasty newspaper columnist to point out that while Putin was arranging his troops in invasion order along the border, Boris was having another party in Number 10, Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary, was having her hair done, President Joe Biden was rowing with Senator Joe Manchin again about his $2 trillion domestic legislation, President Macron was looking across the English Channel with irritation and the new German chancellor was holidaying in Baden-Baden. So it's all go go go. Desperate to leave all his troubles behind him, Boris is hawking off to Eastern Europe to strengthen deterrence (?), Macron is on the phone to Putin talking about a new security architecture in Europe, whatever that means, Biden appears resigned to a Russian invasion and Chancellor Olaf Scholz is trying on new helmet headgear to send to Ukraine, bless. Non-stop activity. But Putin calmly picks up the phone when it rings or ushers the latest Western visitor into his Kremlin boudoir. But really it's all an act. He KNOWS what he is going to do. He has now decided. Of that I am sure.