The Irony of Canceling Everything Russian

I read the editorial. I'm not 100% certain what the "irony" of the headline refers to - I think that the irony in question is that canceling everything Russian makes the world a place like what Putin wants. Except that the "what Putin wants" is a rhetorical strawman constructed by the editorial's author.

I think that the NYT ran this because of their own "anti-cancel-culture" crusade, latest salvo is this illogical construct: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-fr... , not because it has merit on its own. I can concede that this editorial does have some merit on its own, but not enough to merit the Paper of Record pushing it.