Russia could have been Westernised with a little more effort, and turned into an ally and partner. (Which is not to say it would have been easy, but it would have been possible.)
Instead Russia was neoliberalised, turned into a mafia economy with huge concentrations of wealth on top of raging poverty, and its imperial pretensions were tolerated for two decades.
Ukraine and Russia are both direct US foreign policy failures.
> Instead Russia was neoliberalised
The West has also been neoliberalised.
Sadly I think that's why nothing better happened to Russia; everybody was comfortable with having a strongman to deal with and oligarchs to take money from. Even to the extent of overlooking crimes like the Salisbury poisonings and the airliner shootdown. It's a common pattern in US partner states.
Most of the former USSR and Yugoslavian states have sought freedom, although there are questions about Serbia, Hungary and to a lesser extent Poland.
I think you underestimate the importance of "plasticky trinkets." Exports are the backbone of the Chinese economy. Without them it can't afford to import food, and millions of Chinese starve. If China declares war and isolates itself so that Russia is its primary remaining trade partner, millions of Chinese starve.
The biggest importers of food to China today are the US, Brazil, Australia, and a handful of Southeast Asian countries - basically that's all gone if China goes to war or isolates itself in some other way.
Now I mean sure anything can happen in a war and the CCP might very well choose to let millions of Chinese starve, they've done it before. My point here was that isolation would inflict terrible and permanent damage to China. A war is unlikely to happen in the first place because not only is this damage so great, but China would probably lose any battle that wasn't very close to their home theatre.
By the way, Chinese food security is a great topic for illustrating how dysfunctional they are as a country. Here's an article on the topic - https://www.cfr.org/article/china-increasingly-relies-import... - basically they don't have food security, achieving it is one of their top priorities, and they are failing to achieve that priority. The cost to grow soybeans in China is 30% higher than in the US, and the yield is 60% lower!
By itself China won't be able to feed its people in case of a US naval blockade, but that's where the alliance with Russia comes into place. Transporting grains by rail instead of by sea is not as cost effective but will do the trick, and Russia has lots of grains. The same Russia has also lots of raw minerals.
That's why throwing Russia into China's open arms is such a geo-strategic stupid thing to do from the West's point of view, really, really stupid.