Sigh. You seem to be missing the point. The Russians living in Ukraine didn't want to have a Russian passport. They thought that there was a place in Ukraine for them. You should know the whole history of the Kievan Rus, the way Russians call Ukraine "Mala Rus", the idea of "fraternal peoples" and so on.

I don't think the Russians living in Eastern Ukraine had any problem whatsoever living in Ukraine as Ukrainians - UNTIL THE US INTERFERED.

I will assume you also know the odious history of the OUN-B and Stepan Bandera, and the rabid Russophobia that hangs like a death pall over Galicia and Western Ukraine.

It was not until the US helped bring these Ukrainian ultranationalists to power in Kiev in 2014 that things became bad for the Russians in Ukraine.

The US allied itself with Neo-Nazis and fascist ultranationalists in order to ensure that Ukraine would have an anti-Russian government in Kiev. And, thanks to the Maidan Coup, that is what the US got. Good for the US, bad for the Donbas.