Does that not apply both ways - if Eastern Ukraine remains in Russian hands, Russia then has sizeable pro-Ukrainian insurgency on their hands, resulting with (more) ethnic cleansing?Dude, that survey clearly states that 31 percent of respondents surveyed in Donbas wanted independence as a separate autonomous region in Ukraine, another 18 percent wanted to join Russia outright, and 27 percent wanted to join Russia, but with autonomy.
Only 24 percent favored remaining part of Ukraine without autonomy.
45 percent of people surveyed wanted to join Russia in some form or another, 31 percent wanted autonomy (but to remain Ukrainian) and only 24 percent wanted to remain part of Ukraine without autonomy.
That supports my argument, and if anything, it makes the two Referendums in 2014 and even the 2022 referendum look more legit.
Even IF Ukraine can somehow breach Russian minefields and trenches, covered by a shitload of rocket artillery in an offensive (conducted without any air power) - and they got absolutely smashed last time they tried this - and somehow pushed Russia back across the Russian border, they still have the issue that the annexed oblasts overwhelmingly don't want to remain part of Ukraine without some form of autonomy, and nearly half of the people that live there flat out want to join Russia.
Even of those that do want to remain part of Ukraine, they're living in cities where nearly half the population want to join Russia, who they probably ******* despise right now thanks to the invasion and annexation.
At a bare minimum that's an insurgency. Almost certainly it ends like things did in Yugoslavia or what happened to Germans living in Eastern Europe at the end of WW2:
Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950) - Wikipedia
If European history is anything to go by, it likely ends with ethnic cleansing.