This is a good thing, and the inevitable result of the west's constant provocations and salami-slicing, encroaching tactics, IMO. At some point humanity has to fight back, even if it draws us closer to the brink of MAD- the ones responsible are the western imperialists, after all. And when and if they do manage to fully and properly "pivot to Asia" I hope China ups the ante like this as well.

My honest belief here is this- the world will never know peace, until the collective west understands fully and thoroughly the full extent of MAD (not necessarily by invoking it, but by facing and being limited by the same threats they continue to hold over the rest of humanity). If the west had suffered even 1/1000000th of what they have done- even in just the past decade, nevermind the past 500+ years- to the global south, or even just to those powers that can and should defend themselves like Russia, China, India, etc... we would already have triggered MAD 1000 times over. At some point it has to be enough, and those nations with the means of making it so should ensure it. Each Russian life is as valuable, if not moreso, than that of those who support the west- same goes with the lives of Palestinians, Chinese, Indians, all Asians and Africans and Latin Americans and all those even in the west who stand against imperialism, being as valuable if not moreso than that of those who stand for the empire. And the only way the west will ever learn that is by the cold hard reality that they cannot make the same favorable and deeply inequitable exchange, that they have for hundreds of years, any more.

Can it even be called a "pre-emptive strike," when the western imperialist regimes have been striking Russia (and indeed, all of the rest of humanity as well as the working masses and all non-white and indigenous peoples including in the west) constantly with impunity for centuries? I don't think so.