This is going to blow your mind. 1910 US Census Mother Tongue:
-Russian (95,137)
-Ruthenian/Little Russian (35,359)
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1910/volume-1/volume-1-p13.pdf
Separate languages even then.
For the Don Cossacks:
“As proof of the existence of the Cossack language, Bubleyev gave an example: in 1812, according to him, Kutuzov demanded to send an interpreter to interact with the Cossack units in the provinces, because he simply did not understand them.”
Where is the word “Ukrainian”? All these stories regarding Ukraine are a weird application of critical race theory.