odessa was historically a russian majority region and still is


fun fact one fifth of ukrainian land is russian majority regions which make up the historic area of novorossiya as it was named around the time of cathrine the great


one third of ukrainian citizens before the war where ethnic russians


and 90 percent of the population spoke or understood russian either as a first or second language


another fun fact the regions of galicia and wolhynia where part of poland before ww2 and has historically been polish majority parts of ukraine also used to be part of austria hungary and slovakia


the areas bordering moldova used to be romanian historically culturally and linguistically this area was on and off part of romanian besserabia


the hungarian/slovakian region was transcarparthia
fun fact the areas that where part of austria through the hapsburg realm and the austrian empire and later the austro-hungarian empire has as of now been austrian and hungarian longer than it has ever been ukrainian the same is true for the polish-lithuanian ruled regions infact some regions central to ukrainian identity has been part of the russian empire longer than it has been ukrainian and under the russian tsardom before that longer than it has ever beeen ukrainian and has been part of the moskovy/moskovia grand duchy longer than it has ever been ukrainian same goes for ottoman ruled regions and romanian areas in fact the czechoslovakian rule of what is now part of ukraine has been under their rule for more years than ukraine has been independent of the soviet union which no longer exists

the northern part of ukraine was historically on maps refered to as malorossiya or little russia russia coming from the words rus refering to the rus people ia a suffic meaning land of