Ehh it's a little different than that with Russia's moves, you might want to read some more articles on the whole situation, I'd recommend mostly everything the BBC has put out since the conflict began.
The extremely tough thing with the eastern part of Ukraine is you get a lot of areas that are practically 50/50 Ukrainian/Russian; I think a lot of average people trying to weigh in on this conflict completely miss this crucial reality. There's a lot of pro Russian people basically by default which is why there was an abundance of separatist militias and support from Russia. While Russia has definitely played a part in things(directly and indirectly), it's not necessarily a situation like the Georgia War in 2008 where it was literally the Russian military invading and threatening things. Russia really doesn't need do all the leg work when there's been pro Russia people and native Ukrainian based Russians already present.
Obviously it's an extremely divisive issue especially with those who don't want anything to do with Russia and happen to be in the regions that are in conflict. It also doesn't help how Ukraine(like many other countries with similar factions) has labeled most of the separatist groups as terrorist bodies.
There is also the issue of people's lives being effected directly by bodies like the Donetsk People's Republic and being unable to really do much about it. There's been plenty of reports of people being being forced to fight in militias against their will or be subject to attacks, tons of people being basically trapped due to any major access road out being under control or littered with violent militias.
The other problem with the nature of the conflict is that it's ripe for people to join in on the action and add more fuel to the fire and settle scores. I remember seeing various articles about Chechens showing up and taking the side of both Ukrainian forces and pro Russia groups all with their own reasons for allegiance.
It's a pretty fucking complicated scenario, especially due to the reasons for why people align themselves with the side that they do.