Meathead:
Russian speakers occupy the eastern half of Ukraine. I also read where Russian speakers occupy Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and
Belorussia.
Those Russian speakers are simply Russians
Not all of them. Ukrainians who identified themselves as ethnic Russians constituted less then 20 % of the population
The simple truth is that the majority of Ukrainians speak both Russian and Ukrainian. Most of them speak Russian at work, and use Ukrainian at home. Citizens living in urban areas primarily speak Russian and those in the rural areas speak primarily Ukrainian or mixed Russian-Ukrainian