Goading Russians is a bit more work than that. If the Russians just lashed out in an agry fashion in response to Ukrainian provocations, Kyiv would have been flattened by strategic bombing long ago.
And Crimea would be flattened by NATO missiles launched by Ukraine and Russian boys flattened under hundreds of NATO tanks in Ukrainian hands, etc. Putin is doing all he can right now. Anything more escalation by the Kremlin just removes barriers to NATO aid for Ukraine.
Russia has lost the shooting war and now will go all in on forcing Ukraine to surrender diplomatically via the work of a Fifth Column in the west.
Thank you for admitting what the detractors here have known all along. This isn’t a war between Russia and Ukraine. This NATO’s war on Russia.