I think we need to have a serious discussion of The National Question again to come to grips with this whole Ukraine business. It seems there is no consensus as to whether Belorussian and Ukrainian constitute separate nations or can be considered part of the greater Russian nation. The language differences being so minor they could almost be seen as dialects of Russian and their history so intertwined that one can see where the view comes from. Especially when you compare them to the other former Soviet Republics where it is much clearer that they are altogether different nationalities.

But in any case this is, in my opinion, more of an academic discussion since, politically, it is clear that the best way forward for Russians as well as Ukrainians would be to be reunited again. After all as communists we do not believe in the ethno-state model, there are plenty of pluri-national states that are perfectly viable and beneficial for all nations involved. The former Soviet Union was one, and today we have the PRC, the Russian Federation and Bolivia to name a few, all managing to more or less harmoniously have a number of different nationalities coexisting under the same state structure without erasing any of them.