I was feeling masochistic so I browsed 
for a while, and remembered that all pro-Ukraine folks seem to take this as a fact. I remember trying to look into this and not finding any evidence, and angry libs were not exactly forthcoming with sources themselves.
So besides the initial feint towards Kyiv (which AFAIK is circumstantial at best) was there ever any evidence pointing towards some Russian plan to eventually annex the entirety of Ukraine?
There are 2 speeches of Putin before the SMO. He said he won’t occupy the country and it was just to protect Donbass and prevent NATOfication of Ukraine. What he said about historicity of Donbass was that they were historical lands of Russia and was given to Ukraine by Lenin to placate the Ukrainian commies or whatever. In that regard people extrapolate the whole speech to be about destroying Ukraine as a state. It’s not, he is saying as those historical Russian lands given to Ukraine, Ukraine should protect the minority rights and shouldn’t join NATO and become a hostile force. Yes, he is denying Ukraine as a state when Ukraine lived under Tsar but there was no official borders drawn pre 1922 as Ukraine exists today. Crimea was also attached to Ukraine in 1956 , so Ukraine has visibly less rights to Crimea than Russia. That’s all his speech is about.
Lenin did had proukrainian bias though, even went as far as to tell the Donbas communists who wanted autonomy in 1918 to shut up and fall in line.
Lol really I thought it was just a made up nonsense from Putin 🤣