?? this is all living memory shit. are you 12?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

they voted to leave after the euromaidan coup. now, the west is pillaging ukraine and making them indebted to the west for possibly hundreds of years. ukrainian citizens will never again have a say in their own country barring an anti-western revolution. also remember that wikipedia on this is very biased towards the western side. you should also consider that for the longest time, donbas and crimea were fighting with only their manpower against ukraine, you have to get all of those people willing to die for a cause somewhere, and it is likely the people that voted for secession in the first place. the ukrainians themselves know the writing is on the wall and have abandoned the country en masse, ukraine now has a population similar to benelux

and before anyone says these elections were a farce, remember that the demographics of each of these areas are majority russian. is it really so hard to imagine that they would vote to join russia? even before the russian-ukraine war and russia's direct involvement, ukraine outlawed the speaking and teaching of russian, belarusian, and yiddish in its schools, whereas before the coup, russian was granted a minority status. since the war, russian speakers are legally second class citizens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine