As F. L. Lucas put it...

"Many honest folk feel it hard to deny the Russian Ukrainians self-determination, if they want to belong to the Russian Federation. But then, can we deny it to the Ukrainian areas among the Russians? Then what about Russian pockets in the Ukrainian areas? Self-determination must stop somewhere. In politics, as in physics, you come to a point where you cannot go on splitting things. You cannot have self-determination by villages. You may split the Ukraine now. In a few years it will be one again. Only it will be Russian. That is all."