several thoughts:
1. From much of what has been said now and before, the Russians consider places like Eastern Ukraine with heavy Russian populations and heritage, as their own, at least in spirit.
2. NATO’s constant encroachment on Russian borders is a spiritual threat as well as militarily and political.
3. The Russian Orthodox Church is a viable entity within Ukraine.
4. In the days of the Czars, the church and government were both powerful in their own right, and co-mingling of their hierarchy was evident. And that was true not just in Russia, but also the orthodox churches in other eastern European countries, and also between the Roman Catholic churches and governments in the rest of Europe. Oppression of the people by both state and church was not unusual. Many of our ancestors settled in America because of such oppression.
The Rus were Baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith at Kyiv in 998.