It's not a declared invasion. I've read headlines that said Russia had "declared war"; in the body of the article, it turns out that Russia has sent a "peacekeeping force" into Donbas. There's been no declaration of war. Russia has responded to requests for help from the rebel leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk.

I mean, there is a war; Russia has been bombing and rocketing Ukrainian military installations all over the country. But it's not a declared war.

I don’t think the residents of an invaded country care very much if they are killed by regular armed forces or intelligence. They’re dead either way.

Yes, you're right, but it could be interesting to understand that for the living in order to prevent to be made dead by regular armed forces or intelligence in the future, in fact right now it's mostly the living that are trying to understand what happened/is happening

Yeah but my point was that the declared invasion is happening due to the rebels that took over Donetsk and Lugansk asking for help from Putin to defend themselves from the ukrainian govt

That is a very naive take. It's abundantly clear that Kremlin orchestrated the rebel areas to "ask for help" so they have a pretext for the invasion. I mean that was so transparent that I honestly thought it was only meant for Russian local audiences and absolutely nobody would buy that in the West.

.-. I am not sure where or what point in my writing made you think that this fact was not very "abundantly" clear to me

Sorry if I misread your message, I guess I didn't get your meaning and took it too literally.