I’m aware that the Russian language is widely used in Ukraine. I’m also aware that a package of laws were passed there in 2019 which phase in very serious limits on where and how people in Ukraine can use Russian.

For instance, it is now illegal for a shopkeeper or shop assistant to talk to a customer in any language except Ukrainian, unless the customer first requests the shopkeeper or shop assistant to do that.

This is one of the ways Ukrainian nationalists are trying to turn Russian-speaking communities into Ukrainian-speaking communities: trying to assimilate them.

I agree that 2014 was a crucial year in Ukraine’s history. I don’t agree with the way you’ve written about events that year, because you’re denying the agency of anyone except Vladimir Putin.

You seem to have forgotten what happened in Kyiv in February that year: the overthrow of an elected Ukrainian president by anti “Moskal” paramilitary units, backed by crowds of demonstrators with EU flags.

What you call "land-grab" started after that, as pro-Russian people in the east and south held counter demonstrations, organised paramilitary units of their own, and asserted their right to break away.