Vlad is the grandaddy of corruption. He will end badly. It’s what tyrants do.
“Ethnic Russians” means Soviet soldiers who married the girls they were shtupping when the Soviet Union collapsed, even in reaches of the Empire that have always hated Russia. They are in all the former Republics and satellites.
Zelensky is an “Ethnic Russian”. His grandfather fought Hitler for Stalin. Z’s first language was Russian, and he was elected on a platform of making peace with Vlad.
Finally, let’s be clear about the “Russian provinces”. Eastern Europe is a Hodge podge of different ethnicities, and national borders shift around all the time. There are enclaves of Hungarians in the Carpathian Mountains. A lot of Western Ukraine used to be Poland. Poland used to not exist as a separate nation. Hitler lost his half of occupied Poland. Stalin kept his and drove the Poles out, then said it was part of Ukraine, because they were the second most numerous ethnic group after Stalin drove the Poles out. Crimea used to be where the Tartars lived, and the rich vacationed. Still where the well-to-do vacation, but there are considerably less Tartars, because Stalin did the same to them. My grandfather was born in Slonim, which has been part of Lithuania, Poland and Bialarussia, depending on who won the last war. When the Czar wanted to conscript him to fight the Germans, he jumped on a ship and sailed to America, and good riddance to the whole place.
So there are no “ethnic Russian” provinces. There are Russians, Hungarians, Tartars, Poles, Armenians, Tajiks, and Ukrainians all over the f@#$ing place, and the borders are wherever the f@#$ they are at this time. Certainly not worth a war over changing them, except that Vlad wants Katherine’s empire back, which would include Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, etc.
The West might be corrupt and also stupid, but contrary to appearances, they do not have a death wish, and neither do the Russian or Ukrainian peoples, respectively. The last imperial power is long dead and good riddance. Hint: Its leader had a mustache. That narrows it down to two. Vlad is leaving the Kremlin, probably from the fifth floor balcony.
I wonder why the people are believing in the counter-intuitive propaganda of sort that you have just posted? If the Russians in republics are what you are calling then then who are Americans in let’s say Midwest or California?