I will point to the fact that before the collapse of Soviet Union, most Ukranians did not see any difference between them and Russians, and most of them voted for keeping Soviet Union intact in the referendum held on 17.3.1991 (as in most other USSR republics), ignored then by Yeltsin and other people who wanted to get their share of power sponsored by US. The division between Russia and Ukraine, as far as I know, was mostly administrative. In Odessa and Kiev people laughed at ukranian nationalism, which was then confined to L'vov and such places.
As for "hundreds of years", Russia was seen as liberator by the same eastern Europe when it fought against the Turks and nazi Germany, was seen as oppressor in some of Caucasus and in Poland, which in their turn thought it was their right to take the land of barbaric Russians. And in the Baltic states there are sources from the 16th century (Guagnini, an italian at the service of Polish court) which describe the Lithuanian Vitold governing Russians in Vilnius, stating that there seem to be more Russian Orthodox churches in Vilnius than catholic ones (and Guagnini cannot be suspected in sympathy to Russians).
So you see, you simplify history, and you do so, I think, first because you don't read, and then because your own country just changed one empire for another.
Russia fought along Nazis to occupy eastern europe afterwards. It was not a liberator. As for Turks, it was Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth that stopped Turks by Vienna.
As for „most Ukrainians“, western Ukraine was not under Russian control till post WW2. Then there was Holodomor in the East. And there's a difference between ethnic Ukrainians and Ukraine citizens. Which is a tricky situation in Donbas and Crimea especially.
As for Lithuanian Vytautas, we're taking in Ruthenians running from Moscow rule for a loooong time. But modern Muscovy / Russia is not the same as Ruthenians.
I think that a person must try, for himself, adhere to the historical truth. Which many times differs from what is written in wikipedia, especially the English version of it when it speaks of the Russian people (to be fair, also the Russian version is often biased in this regard, with an opposite sign).
"It was not a liberator" - tell it to the people who greeted the Soviet Army with flowers when they entered Vilnius (I know personally of concrete evidence). Tell it to the Jews, who were being murdered by Lithuianian nationalists, Lithuanian communists aside. Tell it to Serbs and Bulgars.
And I do not try to deny any of the the other historical facts: Stalin's repressions to start with. (By the way, what do you think would happen if some of the events which led to Soviet invasion of Chechoslovakia would happen in some european country, with americans taking the role of USSR?)
And Soviet Union was perceived as the liberator from the nazis, and not US, contrary to modern Holywood "tradition". People knew then the facts. And I do not try to depict USSR as something different from what it was.
"As for Lithuanian Vytautas, we're taking in Ruthenians running from Moscow rule for a loooong time"
Who are exactly "we"? The documents of the early Magnus Ducatus Lithuaniae were written in Latin and a Russian language variety ("old Ukranian", of course, of course..). This variety of Russian was its de facto official language.
And then these mysterious "Ruthenians".. Guagnini speaks of Russians in general ("omnibus Ruthenis"), and "gens Moscovitica" are just part of them.
Regarding history in general: what I know personally is the very short period since the 90s. And I know for a fact that Russians were not, at least until 2007, the "aggressors" the west, especially the balts, try to depict them ("forgetting" the elephant in the room, NATO expansion to the east). On the contrary, in Lithuania the aggression came mostly from lithuanians (aggression does not mean necessarily actual physical violence, it can be directed against language, culture, and history), while Russia was actively refusing to defend the rights of the Russian minority (I know this from first hand source).
So, also judging by how this period is being depicted by the west, I make my judgement also about the depiction by the west of other periods of Soviet and Russian history.
As for "hundreds of years", Russia was seen as liberator by the same eastern Europe when it fought against the Turks and nazi Germany, was seen as oppressor in some of Caucasus and in Poland, which in their turn thought it was their right to take the land of barbaric Russians. And in the Baltic states there are sources from the 16th century (Guagnini, an italian at the service of Polish court) which describe the Lithuanian Vitold governing Russians in Vilnius, stating that there seem to be more Russian Orthodox churches in Vilnius than catholic ones (and Guagnini cannot be suspected in sympathy to Russians).
So you see, you simplify history, and you do so, I think, first because you don't read, and then because your own country just changed one empire for another.