Everybody has seen the narrative that Russia attacked Ukraine because Putin is trying to reclaim territories of USSR and that if Ukraine falls then Russia will go after other countries in Europe.
However, if expansionism is the goal, then why isn’t Russia invading places like Kazakhstan, Georgia, or Uzbekistan. These are much weaker countries that don’t have NATO support. Kazakhstan in particular has a huge territory and plenty of natural resources. It would be far easier for Russia to invade a country like Kazakhstan than Ukraine, yet Russia seems to be able to coexist with these countries just fine.
Personally, I don’t see how this can be reconciled with the whole imperialism narrative the west is trying to push.
Crimea isn’t really a good example given that it was part of Russia until Khrushchev gave it symbolically to Ukraine back when it didn’t have any real meaning given that both Russia and Ukraine were part of USSR. Crimea is predominantly populated by Russians who had no interest being part of Ukraine after the coup in 2014.