There are others in the world. Once they have their own country, they will try to regain their own national identity, which inevitably leads to some conflict with outside migrants who settled in their land. Especially when they were sent to rule local people.
Having their own language is probably the most important thing to establish a national identity. You could try to accommodate those settlers. I know this is a tricky subject. But it is not enough to warrant full-scale invasion and outright occupation. Eventually they have to learn to adapt to the political change.
“Eventually they have to learn to adapt to the political change.”
More likely, as a lot of history demonstrates,if a minority feels oppressed they seek to create their own independent country or they seek union with their fellow cultural and language practioners in a neighbouring country or region. Suggesting that Russians in Ukraine must learn to live in Ukraine in Ukraine as loyal subjects and jetison their identity and language is not realistic. Should Kurds jetison their struggle against the Turks just to fit into the box of Turkish nationalist aspirations? Or the Karen into the Burmese state? And so on and so forth
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A lot of Russians in Ukraine, no doubt,see Russia as a big brother coming to help them against a bully in the guise of Ukrainian nationalism. It doesn’t matter what a westerner thinks about this.