One of the early cell intercepts of the invading russian troops calling home had this interesting episode -

This russian is calling his wife and is all very excited saying "OMG, their icecream is amazing, I ate like a kilo of it, so much better than ours! And you know what? Their villages all have asphalt roads and the houses, have you seen the houses? Lots of appliances in each of them! HOW DARE THEY LIVE BETTER THAN US!"

russia is looking at this war as both the opportunity to claim new territory and get rid of undesirables - it is a deeply racist and homophobic country.

We might be thinking that they are losing their most vulnerable male population (and they are - this will have a profound effect on their future) but they see it as a golden opportunity to get rid of all non-slavic people WHILE doing some conquering.

Being Ukrainian myself, I can say from personal experience, even in the Soviet Union - Ukrainians were considered 2nd class citizens, simple village type folks that can't really be smart and were constantly ridiculed by russians.