The really funny part is that my Ukrainian side of the family was always deeply pro-Russian. It’s the Jews in the family that were life-long passionate Ukrainian nationalists.
As I told you last week, the Ukrainian side of the family is from South-East Ukraine. The fighting right now is occurring right where they were all born and grew up. This means they were all Ukrainian speakers as they were growing up. They had to Russianize their (mine, as well) last name and unlearn Ukrainian to be able to get educated and employed in white-collar jobs back in the USSR. And this is an enormous trauma. The only way to process it is to devalue what you have lost. Which is exactly what they did.
My mother would always drive me to distraction with her constant, “We are Russian people” and “Our Russian culture is the best.” Not that there is anything wrong with being Russian but I hate inaccuracy and dislike wannabeism. Even in the face of all the nasty, degrading remarks about the inferiority of Ukrainians that her numerous really Russian friends would regale her with on a regular basis, my mother persisted. All of her relatives were the same. She wouldn’t tolerate even the most innocent comment of mine she’d perceive as anti-Russian.
“Did you tell your new colleagues you are Russian?” she’d ask.
“No,” I’d say. “Because I’m not.”
“How can you say this?” she’d exclaim. “It’s all your father’s fault with this silly Ukrainian nationalism of his.”
Of course, now all of a sudden, the Ukrainians in the family are discovering that they are, indeed, not Russian. The real Russians are bombing the region where they grew up. The Russian media tell them they are subhuman and ought to be wiped out. The family’s Ukrainians are now recognizing the enormity of what they had lost and the reasons why they were deprived of their entire language and culture.
Of course, as we all remember, the official story was that Russia needed to invade Ukraine to “protect” its Russian-speakers from some mysterious threat. The result is not what the invaders hoped for.
Clarissa's Blog 
I can understand implicitly, because this is what I also experienced:
This was not an ideological residue of the past I had to cope with, but a complete ideological entrapment. You need to estimate something pretty vast. Imagine that your very close relatives had gone to war and died for a religion based in your country. Everybody in your family really believed in that religion—and now you are displaced. Well in a very fundamental sense that religion IS your identity, rather than a residue to be cast off. I think you need to enhance your sense of magnitude.
I think what you still don’t get is the petrifying force of conscience and duty and the power this had over me. When you are used to living under an ideology that sometimes pronounces death on those who disagree with it, you may be inclined to put issues of conscience and judicious righteousness BEFORE well-being and the basic functions of eating and sleeping.
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