don't think the west and former soviet governments ever really became friends
they reached out to us when they formed their democracies because they needed our financial help (trade i.e. acceptance of their currency as well)
Russia's biggest problem economy wise has always been foreign exchange (having enough euros or USD to buy foreign goods) Their consumer products for the most part are not up to western country standards so they export gold, diamonds, potash, platinum, and oil & gas. Natural gas the largest commodity by far.
This essentially means they do not have much in terms of leverage in a economic trade war with the west and still need to import wheat to feed their people.
Of course things are better than when they were communist however now they are responding to NATO's inroads with former satellite soviet countries by trying to consolidate their influence with countries like Ukraine with armed conflict as a potential solution to consolidation.
A all out war with Ukraine though is not like what they have participated in with regard to the past. This would be a major war which I don't think even the Russians want.
So a high stakes bluffing game seems to be going on with Putin playing the only card he has which is his belief that NATO is an empty threat to an armed conflict threat. The west can play a slow starve them out economically game if they build a strong enough alliance to provide economic sanctions. Russia moving forward with its natural gas pipeline with China will eventually diversify their export market for natural gas.
Something interesting to note is that the Russian government is slowly transferring government office and bureaucratic headquarters east away from Moscow. This might be an emphasis to develop the local economies of their eastern areas to integrate those economies more closely to Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia)
Who knows what this all means in the end but no one benefits from a major war, west hold the cards in terms of economic leverage, China and Russia getting closer seems inevitable and currently moving in that direction.
Wonder if Putin is just going to try and extract a large financial consideration out of the west to back off stimulating a civil war in Ukraine.
Crazy world we live in.....
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