It is very difficult to put such complex topic into a post, so let me summarise with bullet points. Let me know what parts to expand or provide sources for: 1.

It is very difficult to put such complex topic into a post, so let me summarise with bullet points. Let me know what parts to expand or provide sources for: 1. Russia tried to get ahold of Ukraine for multiple centuries already, so it is engraved in the culture of both Ukrainians and Russians. 2. The last time Ukraine lost a war to Russia was in 1920, which was followed by a century of terror and genocide [0] from Russian side which ended in 1991 by the collapse of USSR. 3. Because Ukraine was always considered a rebellious state, a manufactured USSR propaganda was that Russians are "big russians" and Ukrainians are "small Russians". The point was that big Russians where superior in every way, while small russians where uneducated villagers. 4. Ukrainian culture is being denied by Russians for more than a century, by means that Ukrainian language was forbidden, and all major cultural figures were either killed or displaced to Gulags. 5. The collapse of the USSR and the weakening of Russia allowed some of these to be reversed and Ukrainian language and culture started to be getting revived. 6. 30 years later from the collapse of USSR, Russians are still in a full denial of Ukrainian culture and think that Ukrainians are just Russians with anti-russia nazism. So culturally, Russians are sure that killing all the nazis will return Ukraine to their "brotherhood" and hence wholeheartedly support this "special operation to denazify Ukraine" as it is called by Russian media. Source: have some of the family in Russia as well as some russian family members in Ukraine, who are completely sure they are helping people of Ukraine right now and support this. All of the deaths and suffering are justified for them, because the "anti-russian nazis" have to be killed anyway. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor