If you didn't know. In the south-east of Ukraine, there are essentially Russians who, after the collapse of the USSR, found themselves outside of Russia, and whom they later wanted to force to abandon the Russian language, join NATO, place NATO military bases on their territory, hate Russia, etc. And they certainly did not want to this. The Donetsk and Lugansk regions generally separated, and Ukraine killed them for 8 years for this.
Russia is just protecting its Russian people.