>>21863376>>21861521What
>>21864409 said, and then some.
It is complex, and historical "Ukraine" doesn't map perfectly onto current borders. Any arrangement could be nitpicked, from several angles, similar to China's claims to the region around the Tarim river basin. As one example, it wasn't just "Russia" ruling over the lands we call Ukraine. The western territory of present Ukraine was under Polish-Lithuanian control for a few hundred years (and Galician lands even before that). Poland itself has a similarly complex territorial history. Border specifics aside, it cannot be denied that there are a separate people who call themselves "Ukrainian", and that counts for a lot.
