Another possibility is that he said he wasn't 100% for more bargaining power in the KHL.
People got really excited when Kovalchuk signed a KHL deal worth the 450 million rubles mentioned and they leap willfully to the conclusion that the KHL is some money tree alternative to the NHL. This is a common discussion on the KHL section of HF, but the idea in principle is a myth. The average KHL import is paid 300-500 thousand USD a year as of early last year and the ruble has fallen since then. That's less than the NHL minimum wage. The 300 million dollar Radulov deal is now worth 4 million a year, less than high-paid superstars like Tyler Bozak, Nazem Kadri and Jake Gardiner are making. Datsyuk has no strength at the bargaining table. First, he's already said he's going back to the KHL, so KHL general managers will not feel the need to be competitive with an NHL salary as he wouldn't play in the NHL anyways next year. He will be 38 by the start of the next season, Kovalchuk was in his prime and Radulov was even younger. Kovalchuk's last full season he was over PPG in the NHL, Datsyuk finished hovering just below .75 PPG and declining quickly. He also wouldn't be open at his age to a long term contract, and neither would a club wish to give it to him, but KHL teams tend to pay significantly more for long contracts than for rental players. Also, if he wanted to keep true to spending time with his family, Yekaterinberg is a club with a smaller budget. If he stayed in Detroit and the ruble fell to 3x less than before the Euromaiden he would actually make 500 million rubles next season. He definitely could not get that in the KHL. This latest statement is probably just a last ditch attempt to gather together some leverage at the bargaining table with some KHL team, but I don't think he's going to get a 500 million ruble contract, or anywhere close to that.