The Ukrainians are Europeans. The only reason the Russians lost Eastern Europe was the empire was draining them dry.
If the Ukrainians are smart, they will let the Russians occupy them and pick up the tab for their bankrupt country.
In the end Russia will disgorge them because the financial costs of keeping them happy are not worth it.
If the only reason Putin is deterred from invading Ukraine, is not due to moral scruples, respect for international law, or even a regard for human life but simply because acquired real estate is very expensive to administer in the modern world.
And rebuilding the Russian Empire involves more than grabbing huge chunks of land in the bargain.
Putin doesn’ want all of Ukraine.
He’ll probably take the East, russophone et russophile, the rich and industrialised part and leave the poor east with its batch of nazis to the EU.
Some are. Some are Russians.
And the truth is, the Europeans who live in Ukraine have had all the press these last two weeks. We have no reliable, testable method of determining what TASS used to refer to as the "correlation of forces".
I presume that the Russians who live in Ukraine want reunification. I also presume that, in the West, there is a so far silent faction of unknown size who were proud to be Soviet citizens, who don't like being small and weak, and/or who don't want to be homosexualized or to be overrun with the Turks and Africans who will arrive with the IMF and the E.U.
I absolutely recognize that Lwow (and Brest, and Grodno for that matter) will never be Russian. But I bet you anything that the silent majority East of Galicia won't fight and die to reverse Putin's coup.
Of course, I could be wrong. That's why they play the games.