Please look at a map and drop the Kremlin talking points. Both regions you mentioned are part of Ukraine and have majority ethnic Ukrainian populations==
Yeah soviet commies gave those regions to ukies. But the population of Novorossiya and Malorossiya are NOT ukies. Even the names of lands speak for it. They are ethnically Russians but just citizens of Ukraine because commies made them..
And Ukraine began to press on them trying to make ukies from them. They resist and Russia helps them up to this war.
Your really need to read more history. Those regions were not “given” to the Ukraine by the Soviets. They were ALWAYS part of the Ukrainian homelands with MAJORITY ethnic Ukrainian populations.
Here are a few ethnographic maps from the past 150 years to show this:
Published in 1879:
https://euromaidanpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1879_nation_europe1.jpg
Published in 1914:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0f/09/3d/0f093d9ed319ed61b678a225cb86a69e.jpg
Published in 1949:
https://euromaidanpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/wMWjtUSAXoQ1.jpg
Published in 2001:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hL85-21M0a4/VyigQss_JpI/AAAAAAAACTc/iZwo8Q8ZCIYyG8j-kdr8Hul2BTNPP0M8wCLcB/s1600/781f6031609e52f92003a7098d5fd73a.jpg
Ethnic Russians make up only 17 percent of the Ukrainian population:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/People
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/major-ethnic-groups-of-the-ukraine.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Ukraine
Today, ethnic Ukrainians are the majority in every oblast of the so-called “Novorossiya”, even in Luhansk and Donetsk.
See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Ukraine
Btw, “Malorossiya”, which means “Little Russia” is not even a separate region but just the Russian nationalists’ name for the entirety of Ukraine as they deny Ukrainians are a separate national identity, but just a Russian sub-group.
