China is not so dangerous in this regard because it is not appealing. It has great amount of economic power, but culturally it is very insular, plus the story of Chinese Uighurs, making people (in Central Asia especially) wary of fully embracing the Chinese Way.

Not so with Europe, which is culturally dominant, and many countries around Russia would love to fully embrace the EU, if EU is willing to take effort. But this is shitty deal for Russia since it was never invited to any such schemes and will lose cultural and economic influence. It's also not all rosy for target countries' population, but it's acceptable and Europe can make it look great.

For Russians it will always look that they cut family bonds for sugar daddy, though. That has sufficient stigma that would explain why Russian population still does not mind the war.

Russia has the Snow White's Evil Queen role assigned here, who is uninvited to the party but crashes it. And boy does Russia embraces this role, unfortunately. "5D checkers" is the term.