is that it is based on the long game. I mean a very long game plan. It doesn't matter if it is or was Czarist Russia, Soviet Russia or the present day Russian Federation, Russia's expansionist policies remain constant based on the same concept: conquest through brutal genocide.
The areas of Ukraine presently illegally occupied by Russia today were once ethnically cleansed through genocide. In 1932-33 there was the Holodomor in the Donbas, of which Luhansk and Donetsk form part. This was the deliberately planned starvation of Ukrainians by the Soviet (Russian) Kremlin. Once the Donbas land was eliminated of the Ukrainian population, the Russians proceeded to populate the Donbas with native Russians. This is why many of the people today in the Donbas speak Russian. The native Ukrainian speaking population was eliminated through genocide.
The same happened in Crimea in 1944. Soviet Russia cleansed Crimea of the Crimean Tatars.
There are many instances going back centuries of this Russian-Kremlin policy of expansion through genocide. We must not reward Russia for genocidal policy. The whole of Ukraine must be returned or this Russian madness will continue for many more centuries.