Russia can be provoked into the war and the war can still be unjust at the same time. It's not an either or scenario. If someone calls me a name and I summarily execute them, it would be both provoked, and unjust in much the same way.

Seems to me Russia blundered pretty badly. Even if it had been as easy as they were assuming they would always come out of this having paid an extremely heavy toll diplomatically and economically. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand why they couldn't use the same tactics their opposition was using and keep it out of the hot war it's turned into.