It was though. If Russia wanted to annex Ukrainian separatist states, it could have done so before they invaded.
Since it didn't, Ukraine never attacked Russian territory.
Then Ukraine the elected a Jewish person whose mother tongue is Russian and speaks Ukrainian with a slight russian accent. Which threw their 'Nazis who want to kill Russian-speaking Ukrainians' narrative in the trash, and maybe it was lived as a provocation since it made Russian propagandists looks like fools.
(1) It seems unlikely that the Russians would care about Ukraine having a Jewish president. Wikipedia suggests the Nazis killed around 3 Russians for every 2 Jews who died in the Holocaust and the Nazis never got to fully implement the plan [0] where they seriously tried to wipe out Slavic populations. "Nazi" to the Russians presumably means something different than Jew-hater. They don't need ideological tropes like the Americans do to justify why the Nazis were a unique evil - they were in the direct ad explicit Nazi firing line.
> If Russia wanted to annex Ukrainian separatist states, it could have done so before they invaded.
(2) You're not being very clear about your meaning when you say this. The obvious reading to me is that Russia had alternative routes to gain control of Ukrainian separatist states, which seems too weird to be what you mean - if that is the case then that would suggest they are invading because something political provoked them.
? Néo-nazis still hate on all Jews, this didn't change with the Gaza war.
I still think it is hard to call an entire nation neo-nazi, and then have that nation vote for a Jew (especially when that nation have a huge Christian majority.).
Like I said, it made propagandists look like fools.
Since it didn't, Ukraine never attacked Russian territory.
Then Ukraine the elected a Jewish person whose mother tongue is Russian and speaks Ukrainian with a slight russian accent. Which threw their 'Nazis who want to kill Russian-speaking Ukrainians' narrative in the trash, and maybe it was lived as a provocation since it made Russian propagandists looks like fools.