Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolayev, Sumy, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Lugansk, Mariupol, Krivoi Rog, Elizavetgrad (aka "Kropivnitsky"), Aleksandrovskaya (aka "Zap

Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolayev, Sumy, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Lugansk, Mariupol, Krivoi Rog, Elizavetgrad (aka "Kropivnitsky"), Aleksandrovskaya (aka "Zaporizhzhia") - most of the cities in the East and the South were founded by the Russians by direct order from the Tsars starting from 1600's. We can dig deeper and find out that in 1897, 78% of Kiev the capital's population was non-Ukrainian, so no, this is not some Soviet invention. If anything, Stalin and Kruschev gifted Lvov (1940), Ivano-Frankovsk (1940), the entire Crimea (1954), Uzhgorod (1945), etc etc to Ukraine, so some thanks to the Soviets should be in order.