First, it's not exactly clear that those ethnic Russian regions wish to be ruled by the Russian state. Second, Russia is in the midst of a full-blown invasion

First, it's not exactly clear that those ethnic Russian regions wish to be ruled by the Russian state. Second, Russia is in the midst of a full-blown invasion of all of Ukraine, and Putin has claimed that all Ukrainians are in fact Russians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Rus...