If that were the whole truth you would have a point (at least for Donetsk and Luhansk, not all of Ukraine), but the extent to which Russia was involved in the separatist movement calls their popular support into question. It’s not all that different from how the US gives support to dissident groups in countries it’s interested in destabilizing, except in scale.
I think it’s also worth noting that the pro-Russia separatists are far-right extremists, which I think is quite an inconvenient fact for Russia given their “de-Nazification” justification for invading Ukraine.
If that were the whole truth you would have a point (at least for Donetsk and Luhansk, not all of Ukraine), but the extent to which Russia was involved in the separatist movement calls their popular support into question. It’s not all that different from how the US gives support to dissident groups in countries it’s interested in destabilizing, except in scale.
I think it’s also worth noting that the pro-Russia separatists are far-right extremists, which I think is quite an inconvenient fact for Russia given their “de-Nazification” justification for invading Ukraine.