You must understand, that rivers unit people, mountains separate people, and from Northern Germany to the Pacific you have no mountains. You have the Carpathian mountains separate the Danube from the above plain and also the Czech Republic and Hungary from the above plain. You have the Ural Mountains that separate Europe from Asia, but those mountains ends while north of the Caspian Sea, so you have a huge steppe between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian sea. Iran has mountains, foothills of the Himalayas, as does Tibet and China, but Manchuria, Mongolia and Xinjiang do NOT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia
Thus once you enter the North German Plain and stay north of the above mountains (and south of the Urals), you are in one huge flat land. In this flat terrain, you find out that people tend to form "Nations" around rivers. The Elbe and Oder defines Northern Germany, the Vistula, Poland, the Dnieper the Ukraine and the Volga Russia. The Don is so close to the Volga it is part of Russia. The Ural became part of Russia under Catherine the Great (and who also took over the Ukraine and the Crimea) from the Ottoman Empire (which only appears to have nominal sovereignty over the area at that time, as the local Tartars were looking for any help to prevent a Russian take over as the Russian peasants moved into previous pasture land of those Tartars AND Catherine decided that slave raids from those Tartars into Russia would NO longer be permitted).
Side Note:Since the time of Genghis Khan, the area of Manchuria to Russia had been under the rule of one ruler. After the break up of the Mongol Empire, by nominal leadership of Kublai Khan and his successors, then under the nominal leadership of the Ming dynasty, then Timerlane and his successors, then the Golden Horde as it finally decided to no longer recognize such nominal rulers. Then the Russian Empire as it took over the Golden Horde (and the Horde reduced to its Crimea base). White became the color of Russia for White was the Chinese/Mongolian Color for the west. As Russia first moved into the Forests of Siberia starting at the time of Ivan the Terrible (And his defeat of the Golden Horde) Russia quickly took over most of the old Mongolian Empire for unlike the Mongols the Russians were farmers and thus could produce and support a huge army. The Golden Horde and the Mongols (and the Tartars) had always been herders and as such very tough fighters but always small in numbers compared to farmers.
Thus from the 1200s onward, Russia moved Eastward and Southward AND also Westward for till you get to a sea or mountains you have no firm border. The Prypiat Swamps of Belarus do act as a border, but varies depending on how deep one wants to claim into those swamps.
The Dniester River flows from the highlands that separate the Ukraine from Romania and it is the highlands that separate those two nations not the Dniester. The Carpathian mountains separate the Danube from the above plain and also the Czech Republic and Hungary from the above plain. Belarus is separated from Russia, Poland and the Ukraine for it is located in the Prypiat marshes., the single largest set of marshes in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pripyat_River
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinsk_Marshes
The various nationalities located on the above plains formed up along the rivers, for that was and remain the main form of transporting goods on that plain. This also lead to those nationalities overlapping as each river's drainage system overlapped each other. Thus any border between these nations will always be arbitrary, some line drawn in the dirt, like the border of Indiana and Ohio. NOT a "Real Border" but as line drawn in the dirt or on a map.
In the Ukraine this includes both its eastern and western borders, You have overlap of Poles and Ukrainians in the West, and Russians and Ukrainians in the East unless you move the border so close to the Dnieper that you exclude MOST Ukrainians. Thus the Ukrainians Easter border will always be in an area with Ukrainians and Russians will live on both sides of the border, the issue is where to drawn the line and right now it appears the people who live in the Don River Drainage Area what to live in Russia, but since that include Kharkov, the Ukraine objects to that division.
Like the border between Ohio and Indiana a border will have to be drawn, dividing wheat fields in half. The issue is where.
Please note the Eastern Ukraine is also a Rich Coal Mining Area. The Coal "Patches" tend to be Russian Speaking for speaking one language is a safety issue in any mine, thus both Russians and Ukrainians working in those mines get use to speaking Russian. The Farmers in the Eastern Ukraine tend to Ukrainian and Speak Ukrainian. In the Urban Areas, Russian tend to dominate, but not as much as in the Coal Patches. The divisions in the Eastern Ukraine appears to be more language driven then ethnic driven, Ukrainians who speak Russians support joining Russia for example, while Ukrainians who speak Ukraine tend to want to stay in the Ukraine. You see this in Kharkov and even Odessa (The port of the Ukraine where the Dniester enters the Black Sea), through both areas are right now under the control of Kiev so the Russian Speakers are suppressed in both areas.
Yes, the more you study the Ukraine, the more you see the best solution may be Putin's proposal for a federated republic for the Ukraine, thus protecting the rights of the Ukrainians and Russian speakers inside the Ukraine.
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