It's not over an 'imagined slight', but bringing back in old soviet states, weakening the EU/NATO (or preventing its expansion), and capturing Ukraine's agricul

It's not over an 'imagined slight', but bringing back in old soviet states, weakening the EU/NATO (or preventing its expansion), and capturing Ukraine's agriculture and industry, both of which are significant, but the economy was also $800BN compared to Russia's $4400BN and it would have been a sizeable addition. China is somewhat happy to support those goals; while everyone is fussing with Putin, they get to kick off expansion in the south china sea.