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“Ukraine has been a country for eons.”
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My grandfather was born in what is now called Dnipro (then Ekaterinoslav) in what is now called Ukraine at the turn of the 20th Century. At that point, nearly 125 years ago, it was called Russia. ALL of what is now called Ukraine had at that point been ruled by Russia for roughly 135 years, and many parts had been ruled by the Russians for far longer. The idea that there was a cohesive and independent Ukraine beforehand is absurd, as territory was ruled by various tribal strongmen who were pretty much always fighting each other and those nearby non-Ukrainian speakers in order to gain more territory. So your claim is wrong.

And, by the way, don’t make me out to be a Russia- or Putin-lover, as my family is Jewish and was victimized in various ways by both Russians and Ukrainians. The predecessor organization to Putin’s KGB, the NKVD, murdered my grandfather’s father in 1937, when he was 74 and suffering from cancer, so I am not exactly kindly disposed toward a man who effectively worked for the same organization and who thinks that the fall of the USSR was the greatest political tragedy of the 20th Century.

That said, in the early 1990’s, the people of what is now Ukraine decided to separate from Russia and be independent. They had that right and still do. I personal think that this war has much more to do with NATO expansion to the east (in violation of both verbal and written agreements), and the straw that broke the camel’s back was a Kamala Harris speech in November 2021 that included not so subtle references to Ukraine joining NATO. This is the fault of the U.S. and Ukrainian governments for pushing that issue - which STILL doesn’t cancel the right of Ukraine to be a separate and sovereign nation.