Great Russians Explain Ukraine Invasion as Need to Make them Little Russians

The following statement occurred in several Russian state media as justification for the Invasion of Ukraine:

Russia is restoring its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together – in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.

So Russia believes it is justified in using force to unite its superior Great Russians with the inferior Little Russians.  Did it never occur to those idiot Great Russians that the Ukrainians might not find the idea of being their subservient Little Russians a very appealing idea?  Those Little Russians sure are looking stout in their courageous rejection of Great Russian enslavement as their serfs.  They are acting like Ukrainians, not Little Russians.