Sure they did. As long as they didn’t resist their ethnic and cultural cleansing, they were left alone.
However, if they tried to be Russian in their own country, they were punished.
So did we. We went from 20 million natives down to something 2 million by the the Andrew Jackson was President. What’s your point. We complain about how liberals use American history to condemn America and here you are doing the same thing as a liberal to justify your hostility towards Russia.
Before 2014 in Ukraine's capitol most people spoke russian. There was no "ethnic cleaning" or punishment. Russians were not "in their own country", they were in Ukraine.
Speaking of ethnic cleaning, how many Ukraine schools or Ukraine churches remain in russian occupied areas?
None
Right, ethnic cleansing by russians today is okay because we all did it once 200 years ago. Okay