On domestic agendas and other headaches – Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

‘There are still many in the West impressed and enamored with Putin – and I’m not just talking about his number one groupie at Mar-a-Lago. Putin is a genius who sees beyond the geopolitical horizon. He skillfully plays four-dimensional chess while the simpletons of the world, particularly U.S. presidents, can’t think beyond backgammon. They throw dice while he concocts intricate, multilayered campaigns.’

(…)

‘As Fiona Hill, a noted Russia expert in several U.S. administrations, told The New York Times, Putin believes the entire crisis “is about him personally – his legacy, his view of himself, his view of Russian history. Putin clearly sees himself as a protagonist in Russian history. ... He’s living in history and his narrative of history.” This explains why his speech lasted a full hour.
Biden, meanwhile, is a policy-oriented, Cold War-shaped, seasoned American politician. He gave a cogent, tight, structured and practical policy speech that wrote its own headlines and takeaways.
This explains why his speech was less than nine minutes long.’

(…)

‘The Russian stock exchange (MOEX) fell by 40 percent in the last year and 30 percent in the last two weeks. The weakness is far more apparent when viewed comparatively.
The population of Russia in 2020 was 146 million. Its gross domestic product – granted, an imprecise indicator – was $1.48 trillion, not much bigger than those of Australia (population 26 million) and Spain (47.5 million), and less than three U.S. states: California, Texas and New York. This makes Russia the 12th largest economy in the world, or 15th if you include the U.S. states. Russia’s GDP per capita is a meager $11,000. For comparison, Israel’s is $44,000.’

(…)

‘Furthermore, if the United States allows Russia to challenge and try to remodel the European security order, China may replicate the pattern in Taiwan and the South China Sea. If the Americans consent to halting NATO exercises in Eastern Europe, why shouldn’t China demand the same in respect to Japan and South Korea? And if it does, what will prevent Japan and South Korea from developing a nuclear deterrent? The next 48 to 72 hours will be critical in terms of the direction and characteristics of this crisis. Will Russia further penetrate Ukrainian territory, expanding a limited incursion into a fully-fledged invasion? How will Putin react to the harsh – but anticipated – sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU? Can and will he be deterred? As for escalation, Putin controlled that element by virtue of possessing both the decision and the timing. Yet as of Monday night, Ukraine also has partial control of the escalatory process by virtue of deciding whether to confront the aptly named Russian “peacekeeping forces” that entered Donetsk and Luhansk.
Then there is sanctions escalation. Biden has vowed to scale-up sanctions when and if Russia deepens the invasion. He purposely omitted injurious and robust sanctions – such as targeting the Central Bank of Russia and disconnecting Russia from SWIFT, the international interbank information and money transfer platform – hoping that they serve as potent threats for a next phase. There are doubts whether this will deter Putin, who seems locked in a mode impervious to such interactions and considerations.
Keeping everything in perspective and in the broader global context, as the United States does, it should again be emphasized that, in and of itself, Ukraine is a peripheral issue and arena for the Americans. Yes, the U.S. is being tested. Yes, it recognizes that the crisis transcends the Donbas region and is part of the formation of a tacit Sino-Russian axis. And yes, it recognizes that the “American order” is being challenged.
More than anything, though, it’s a major headache that distracts Biden from his domestic agenda and his overarching foreign policy priority: China and the Pacific Rim.
A positive outcome, coupled with concluding the Iran nuclear deal – another nagging headache for the Americans – will restore U.S. credibility and leadership, and that is critical. But Biden would be the first to admit that he wasn’t elected to deal with Russia, and he will not be reelected as the liberator of Ukraine.’

Read the article here.

This is a good summarization.

Biden is not elected to deal with Russia, he will not be reelected as the liberator of Ukraine.
Yes, Ukraine is only important for the US, and for the EU for that matter, because it will send a message to China, this is how far you can go, or you can go even further.
This is not the beginning of World War III.

And Putin is a good chess player, despite the Russian stock market crashing, the poor state of the Russian economy, and the delusions of Putin (and some others) about Russia as a world power.

In other words, a good chess player without many options.