It’s very much a fact, though. Before the war started, my girlfriend (Ukrainian) said she figured that if Russian soldiers came, Ukraine would just let them in

It’s very much a fact, though. Before the war started, my girlfriend (Ukrainian) said she figured that if Russian soldiers came, Ukraine would just let them in in peace. She didn’t expect Russia to go ahead with an invasion in the first place, and didn’t realise war was what would be involved. Her attitude obviously very quickly changed when she saw her country was fighting back, morale is an important component of this. It was always delusional to think west Ukraine would welcome Russia, but east Ukraine had been consuming a LOT of Russian propaganda up to the war. And when we talk about eastern Ukraine we aren’t talking about the bordering cities currently suffering heavy occupation, we are talking about the entire eastern half. If Ukrainians themselves were thinking it, there is no question soldiers were as well. You may have seen comms of dead Russian soldiers in the early days of the war talking about this, including a sms conversation that got famous when being read out at the EU parliament.