You should stick to scamming insurance companies, Brad**.
Russia has been trying since 2015 to get Ukraine to uphold the Minsk agreement that Ukraine signed.
Russia has also asked the West for security agreements for over 30 years, and was ignored by the US and its allies.
Only after Zelensky disavowed the Minsk Agreement and said it was no longer valid did Russia recognize the two breakaway areas of Eastern Ukraine as independent, sovereign nations.
This is totally in accord with the UN's founding documents, which include a declaration of a people's right to self-determination.
The Dombass (not "dumb-ass", Brad**, that's Y O U) declared independence under the UN Charter. The UN also says that a nation has a right to sovereignty and should not be interfered with by outside nations, which is the part that the West claims was abrogated by Russia.
The irony in this, which will escape Y O U, Brad**, is that the US and is allies have a long history of interfering in dozens upon dozens of other countries' rights to self-determination.