Those weren’t Russians .Those people were seeded there by Stalin to replace Tartar people he shipped off further east. As to Afghanistan, we never should have gone in there in the first place. Same with Iraq. If Bush had kept the Iran/Iraq war going for a few more years both countries would have been no factor in the Middle East. Even if Russia wins they will never control Ukraine. There are still people there who remember the Holodomor.
We've lied to the Russians over and over again. We promised no eastward expansion of NATO and lied. We encouraged Ukraine to break the Minsk Agreement, which it signed, that would have prevent this war and ended the civil war we set off in 2014 with illegal coup we fomented.
There is no chance Russia will exit this war without guarantees what is left of Ukraine is a neutral state.