Do you have a credible cite for that? Because the people in that area who are Russian-identified don’t constitute a majority as far as I’m aware, and thus would have no standing in international law.
[quote=“http://www.interpretermag.com/few-in-ukraine-including-in-the-east-support-separatism-or-joining-russia-poll-shows/”]But a new poll shows that few of the people on whose behalf Putin claims to be acting are interested in separatism from Ukraine or in having their regions become part of the Russian Federation. Instead, even in the eastern portions of Ukraine where Russian speakers form a large share of the population, overwhelming majorities want to remain in Ukraine.
According to the results of a poll by the Democratic Initiative of Ukraine released today and discussed by Andrey Illarionov in an Ekho Moskvy blog post, 89 percent of the residents of Ukraine consider that country their Motherland.
The poll, conducted in March and having a margin of error under 2.3 percent, found that the regional variation on this point was far less than Putin and many commentators in the West have suggested. Thus, 97 percent of the residents of the western Ukraine view that country as their own, 89 percent of the residents of the Donbas in the eastern part do as well.[/quote]