I have zero knowledge of the history or geopoliticial millieu there, I know there’s obviously lots of Ukrainians who speak both languages but not sure that translates to them wanting to necessarily join Russia per se.
I have zero knowledge of the history or geopoliticial millieu there, I know there’s obviously lots of Ukrainians who speak both languages but not sure that translates to them wanting to necessarily join Russia per se.
That is indeed the case, it’s important to keep in mind that Ukraine was created by USSR out of parts of Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. I highly recommend watching a lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and he gives an objective analysis of the situation. Let’s take a look at some slides from the lecture here. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here’s how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to: