2-D Chess: This is about Ukraine.
3-D Chess: This is about Ukraine and sending an implicit warning to China. It is cheaper to fight the battle in Ukraine, and discourage China from seizing TSMC, than to fight China over Taiwan.
You had better hope that's completely wrong, because in Ukraine we got nothing for Putin in the long run. He has the current resources to ratchet it up and the oil/gas income to keep it ratcheted up. We have Biden and a relatively small number of high-tech artillery systems which Ukrainians aren't trained for and which they cannot protect.
Hello?
Both Russia and the West will be weakened and impoverished in this war. Qui bono? China. And China is smiling.
While we drain our strategic oil reserves to the tune of a million barrels a day (and just shipped a million barrels to China), China is filling up its own strategic oil reserve, mainly with cheap Russian oil — which will help them withstand sanctions should they decide to invade Taiwan.