The US officially wants Russia to beat a retreat back to 1994-2011 borders.
Russia feels the need to secure the continued existence of pro-Russian areas in what Ukrainians regard as Ukraine, hence the conflict.
Russians in the conflict area feel they have gotten shafted by Ukraine and want to use Russian language in their economic, political and legal life just as in the old USSR.
Asking a Russian to use Ukrainian is somewhat like asking an Italian to use Spanish.
“Russians in the conflict area feel they have gotten shafted by Ukraine”
Not quite - it’s more like they feel Ukraine has been shafted by the West - otherwise they actually would have declared war on Ukraine and sent in far more troops.
In any case, it ends the same way, with Ukraine no longer being a threat to Russia.