I am wondering but was Ukraine really about Russia in the greater picture? Despite what the leftist media says about Russia, the democrats since the Obama era has been trying to contain China militarily. It’s not unreasonable to say that NATO with Ukraine and Georgia under their control could threaten Russia to cut off resources to China in an hot conflict over Taiwan. Now they have prematurely blown their weapons against the wrong target and panicking about what they should to do.
It is not as simple. US strategy is targeting China as a full competitor, but not Russia. The plan is, my guess only, to expand NATO to Ukraine, Georgia, and then the 5 central asian stans, which will bring them next to Xinjiang. Afterward, Xinjiang cotton and Uyghur genocide will come to play and probably will have an Uyghur independence agenda, with Kazakhs, tajiks, kyrgyz join their own country. Weather not these people really want to do that is not a matter to be concerned, western countries will be able to get that going with puppet leaders. Afterward is Xizang, and qinghai as part of waizang外藏, and Mongolia, Dalai agree to indian side of the border will probably get india support as part of QUAD. With Taiwan in the east declaring independence, that will pretty much contain China's future and China's rise.