Causes of the Russia vs Ukraine war - Historically

In which John explores historical and political context to understand what caused the Russian government's invasion of Ukraine, and how we arrived at this awful now.
CORRECTIONS:

The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian. "National languages" as a phrase was confusing. I should've just said that 30% of Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language. Also, the etymology of "Ukraine" is not settled as "borderlands." Many Ukrainian linguists argue that the etymology of Ukraine comes from words meaning "In My Land," not "borderlands." Thirdly, I misspelled Kyiv as Kiev. If I made further mistakes, let me know and I'll amend here.

SOURCES:

Putin's claims that Ukraine never had "real statehood" have been stated in both essays and speeches.
https://time.com/6150046/ukraine-statehood-russia-history-putin/
You can fact-check of the same speech.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/23/fact-checking-putins-speech-ukraine/

You can read Vladimir Putin's essay where he expounds his theory that Ukraine "was created entirely by Russia,"
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

You can learn about the Holodomor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Stalin's forced deportation policies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

The 1991 Independence referendum results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum