Khrushchev was an ethnic Russian born in the Eastern Ukraine.
He says so HIMSELF IN HIS MEMOIR. He notes his internal passport was marked “Russian”
“’I myself am a Russian and wouldn’t want to slight the Russian people, but 1 must attribute our success in the restoration of Ukrainian agriculture and the reconstruction of Ukrainian industry to the Ukrainian people themselves.”
Khrushchev was born in Kalinovka, near the border but on the Russian side of it.