Plenty of people would raise their eyebrows on you for mentioning the US, but you would not exactly be wrong. China and Russia are authoritarian. However, the US is a highly flawed democracy with extremely flawed and abusive foreign policy. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had recent precedence, with US invading Iraq out of trumped up charges. In Putin’s mind, he must have thought “if the Americans did it, why can’t I”? This is why I believe in a multipolar world.