I’m not buying it: Russia starved millions of Ukrainians to death in the ‘30s and then moved ethnic Russians in to take their place. When the Soviet Union crapped out, Ukraine was finally done with the Russians and finally got independence back.
Then ethnic Russians in Ukraine rebelled, with full overt support of the Russians. That war kept getting larger and the Russian support became even more obvious when that Dutch airliner was shot down by a Russian antiaircraft missile system.
Then the Russians got bolder and tried to put a Russian puppet government in place in Kiev - and when the Ukrainian people wouldn’t put up with it and the Spetznaz snipers killing the unarmed civilian demonstrators, and put their own government in, the Russians seized Crimea and soon after, attacked Ukraine in a full combined arms attack.
The Russians have always been barbarians. They are not the good guys.
“Russia starved millions of Ukrainians to death in the ‘30s and then moved ethnic Russians in to take their place.”
Hell, Stalin had the native Tatars of Crimea removed and replaced them with ethnic Russians.