My view from way down here at average schmuck level sees a couple of different threats. On one hand there is China, on the other hand there is the global elite. I think there two have teamed up in a marriage of convenience because China wants tech, trade, and power, and globalists want money and are singularly prone to mission creep and lying to themselves.
Putin was lured by China, just like the global elite was. I look at it this way, China has motive (they want power and resources), the global elite doesn’t have nearly as strong of a motive because nobody is going to attack Russia, so they don’t need Ukraine as a staging point. The sanctions they are piling on Russia harm their bottom line. The only one that comes out ahead is China.
You can’t really say “look what you made me do” to the West, for leaving the NATO door open to Ukraine, because as we see right now in NATO’s inaction regarding non-member Ukraine, NATO is defensive, not offensive. It is China that is expansionist (just ask India) and that went to the trouble to have extensive meetings with Russia to set all this up and to apparently give them the go-ahead to invade Ukraine after the Winter Olympics.
This also comes at a time when China has begun to experience shrinkage in its prospects. Timing.
It seems that they were telegraphing plans for the elite PTB's intentions to destroy Western Civilization and replace it with the new World Order and Chinese hegemony.