It would not be necessary, as you pointed out, plenty of Ukrainians still live in Russia and they are free to drive trucks. Best of my knowledge, there is nothing like interment of Japanese that happened in US during WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
I know many people like that either. I personally spent some time in Moscow, nobody ever knew I’m not a local. Same goes for a friend, we both were laughing at them being unable to recognise we’re not locals.
I believe this might be truer for small distant regions, where people might have their own local accent there. Plus not too many people to blend in that easily. But in general, even if one speaks differently, it might not take too long to adapt to speak like everyone else.
I'd suggest reading "The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939" by Terry Martin [0]
"The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the 1920s, the Bolshevik government, seeking to defuse nationalist sentiment, created tens of thousands of national territories. It trained new national leaders, established national languages, and financed the production of national-language cultural products.This was a massive and fascinating historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state."
[0] https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7591/97815017...
Everyone else reading this nonsense, go read Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands, where he writes exactly that very time frame. You’d learn a lot of new things about the USSR and its attitude towards minorities.
I've read and watched enough of Timothy Snyder to know that he's quite biased when talking about modern affairs, so no, I don't have Gell-Mann amnesia and don't feel like trusting him when he writes about history.
And please tell how the USSR forced you to "forget your own languages and culture"?
I’m telling you to back off, I don’t like you and your attempts to diminish me and westplain me something you don’t know personally, basically spreading Russian propaganda how wonderful it was under Russian occupation during the Holodomor timeline. I wish you to get blocked on here sooner than later.
This half?
"The name Novorossiya, which means "New Russia", entered official usage in 1764, after the Russian Empire conquered the Crimean Khanate, and annexed its territories, when Novorossiya Governorate (or Province) was founded. Official usage of the name ceased after 1917, when the entire area (minus Crimea) was annexed by the Ukrainian People's Republic, precursor of the Ukrainian SSR." [0]
Maybe because it used to be a part of Russia and was gifted to the Ukraine by Lenin, the evil bolshevik? Hmm...
>Latvia and Estonia have huge parts of their population who don’t speak local national languages, but speak only Russian.
Because they are children and grandchildren of Russians who migrated there after the WW2 and now are subjected to discrimination by local nationalistic government.