How do you know this to be the case?
Here is the media of the current situation. Doesn't seem very welcoming does it?
People seem to make the mistake to think that the citizens that speak Russian are automatically pro Russian. But that isn't the case, they are Lithuanians first for the most part.
I didn't say they wanted Russian occupation necessarily, just that they were separatist from Ukraine. They were all significantly in favor of Ukrainian independence from USSR of course.
> So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist?
Are you in denial of the existence of Ukrainian separatist regions and the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic?
The ethnic lines between Government/Separatists aren't that clear and if that were the case, then Putin would be correct in criticising discrimination too.
Russia claims that the Russians that are fighting there are "volunteers". So basically everybody in that region knows very well who they are really fighting. Not Ukrainians but Russian "volunteers".
Ukrainians have both the time (they tasted western freedom and don't want to go back, russian troops need to be paid by the day) and the watches (javlins, stingers, US intelligence and now extra jet fighters)