Yes I understand your point. I do think your post is formulated to support your confirmation bias. Like the issues of Crimea and Nazis are different issues, it’s not clear to me why they are clumped together if you’re not using one of them in your conclusions.
Those have lower correlation than say “rise of Ukraine as independent successful country” and “Russia feels compelled to invade”. And to take it from Putins mouth, he said multiple times that Ukraine is not real country, and that thesis survived multiple iterations of his speeches over this year
When I read your post, to me it’s: “Ukraine always had Nazis → therefore it’s was OK for Russia to save its minorities → they will hate being in Ukraine again, according to independent pollsters”
While my view is: “Ukraine always had Nazis → what does it have to do with Russia invading the neighbor country multiple times without any provocation” and “are we sure that polls in the occupied and resettled territory are trustworthy?” and “referendums with a gun to a persons head are incredibly untrustworthy”
Well, about re-Luigi-ing an AI: these tropes literally exist: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn—when bad guy turns good
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deprogram—when a bad character turns out to be a good character who was brainwashed.
These are also the bread & butter tropes in the superhero comics