>>508188500
Ukraine with its current borders is a historical mistake. The east and south are ethnic and culturally Russian, but unfortunately they were assigned to the Ukrainian SSR and ended up on the wrong side of the border after the end of the USSR. This in itself wouldn't necessarily become a problem, as long as Ukrainian leadership understood and respected the dual nature of their state: part Russian (the east and the south), part Ukrainian (the north and the west). Unfortunately, in 2014, there was a western backed coup in Ukraine, and the new pro western government would take a series of measures against the Russian part of the population, such as forbidding them from using their native language in official documents or a legal capacity, defunding Russian-speaking schools, etc. When there were protests against this, they were broken down by force. If the current Russian leadership is truly competent, they ought to fight until all historically Russian parts of Ukraine are once again part of Russia.