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.
Lot of BS made by foreigners. French and others.
How French may know ethnical map of Russian Empire in 1879? No ways. So it just a fake.
Same published in 1914 and so on.
But historical name still stand. Malorossiya is you say “Little” but RUSSIA not Ukraine. So it is a part of RUSSIA not Ukraine. So the ethnicity of main population also is Maloross not ukies.
I know that during commie time they was try to ukrainize those lands but as we see know the people there didn’t forget who they are. And they stand for RUSSIA not Ukraine today.
