Empires and former empires have a hard time passing by an opportunity to enlarge their power—especially when they are driven by longstanding hard feelings toward and anxiety over the growing power of strategically important political entities. That's why the U.S.A. invaded Iraq (and, less blatantly, Afghanistan). That's why Russia has invaded Ukraine. That's not to equate the two powers or to make George W. Bush the equal of Vladimir Putin. They play chess differently and, besides, who'd want to have a beer with Vladimir Putin? It is to say that the politics of this present evil age is exemplified by nation states which to varying degrees restrain their aggression by means of a profit/loss calculus. The modern nation state does not know what M.L. King, Jr., knew, viz., that peace is not the absence of conflict; it is the presence of justice.
And while I pontificate here the people of Ukraine are huddling in fear or fleeing their homes or dying. Maranatha!