There are no Imperial ambitions or Russia talking over Europe etc , Sometimes its amazing on how phony narrative can be - Russia is about to colapse , Russian army is about to march across Europe to Paris to get some Kebab there.
I fully agree Russia should not have gone into Ukraine in 2022 ,but it was outright goaded into it. Billions were invested into no less than 3 regime changes in Ukraine on third one they finaly got the war they wanted . Prospect of Ukraine joining nato would have triggered a war no matter who was the president in Russia.