There is a large Russian-speaking population in the Baltic states:
Putin’s War in Ukraine Tests Allegiances of Russian Speakers in Former Soviet LatviaA large minority in the country looked to Moscow after the Cold War. Some are now reassessing their allegiance, but not all
Putin’s War in Ukraine Tests Allegiances of Russian Speakers in Former Soviet Latvia - WSJ
There is a large Russian-speaking population in Belorussia and Ukraine - but they too are 'reassessing their allegiance' to Russia:
Op-Ed: Speaking Russian doesn't make me a supporter of Putin's war - Los Angeles Times
And other Russian-speakers are not so sure:
Soviet Bloc Immigrants Rethink Their Identity Amid Russia-Ukraine War - The New York Times
A group of Russian writers have made the point that this war is not about language - but about power and propaganda:
A group of eminent writers has appealed to Russian speakers around the world to convey the truth about the war in Ukraine by directly contacting Russian citizens using “all possible means of communication”.The 17 signatories to the appeal include the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian author who writes in Russian. She won the Nobel prize for literature in 2015 for writing described as “a monument to courage and suffering in our time”...
“Today the Russian language is being used by the Russian state to ignite hatred and justify the shameful war against Ukraine. In Russian, the official media keep repeating endless lies that are creating a smoke screen around this aggression.
“Russian people have been fed lies for many years. The independent sources of information have been almost entirely destroyed. The opposition leaders – silenced. The state propaganda machine is working with all its might..."
Eminent writers urge Russian speakers to tell truth of war in Ukraine | Ukraine | The Guardian
And Russian-speakers in Ukraine don't feel they need 'defending':
These Russian speakers in Ukraine reject Putin's warBy Mo Abbas and Yelyzaveta Kovtun
KHARKIV, Ukraine — Sheltering in the subway system of his besieged city, Leonid Perevoznik laughed bitterly between rounds of Russian shelling.
“It’s funny because he says he’s going to defend Russian speakers in Ukraine, in Kharkiv,” Perevoznik, 24, said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I’m a Russian speaker, and I can’t see any discrimination against me in Ukraine. It’s funny. It’s like a joke,” the software developer added.
Putin has used the pretext of protecting Russian speakers from what he termed “genocide” and oppression by the government in Kyiv to justify his invasion of Ukraine and earlier annexations of the country’s territory in 2014.
“There is no racism or any other kind of ism. … Russian- speaking people don’t need any protection in Ukraine,” said Shpak, also a web developer.
Although Ukrainian is now the default language throughout the country for signs, menus and other everyday documentation, Russian versions are common. Shop and restaurant workers can usually switch effortlessly between the two languages.
Russian is the main language in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and only 25 miles from the Russian border in the country’s northeast. Yet it has been pummeled by Russian missile attacks in recent days, with civilian areas leveled.
These Russian speakers in Ukraine reject Putin's war
Fundamentally, the war is not about 'language':
As the Moscow Times said in 2014:
Putin Fears Democracy in Ukraine - The Moscow Times
And today:
Ukraine crisis: Putin and the kleptocrats fear democracy in Russia, not sanctions abroad
What Putin Feared Most About Ukraine: It's A European Democracy - Worldcrunch
Putin fears Ukrainian freedom and democracy, not NATO | View | Euronews
Vladimir Putin fears Ukrainian democracy not NATO expansion - Atlantic Council
Putin sees Ukrainian democracy as threat that undermines Russia's mission | Stanford News
There are other opinions:
Putin no longer fears a ‘democratic Ukraine’ | Russia-Ukraine war | Al Jazeera
With a response to that:
Earlier this month, the controversial Russia pundit Leonid Ragozin wrote an article for Al Jazeera titled “Putin no longer fears a democratic Ukraine”. The problematic piece lays the blame for Ukraine’s present troubles solely on the West and on Ukrainian political elites, entirely erasing Russia’s agency.The author’s core contention is that while Putin once feared Ukrainian democracy, the Russian president no longer does because the troubled state of Ukraine today is the best argument against the democracy he used to fear.
He goes on to suggest that the West is not interested in democracy but in creating an “anti-Russia” into which it can move military infrastructure. According to Ragozin, this “geo-political adventurism” is the driver of a conflict that could be solved if the West would simply engage with Russia in good faith.
When addressing Ukraine’s laws, the article again mischaracterises the facts on the ground. The use of the Russian language is not “severely restricted” by law in Ukraine. In fact, it predominates in major cities in the centre, east and south of the country. No matter an individual’s spoken language of preference, native-level passive comprehension of each language is almost universal. Russian speakers continue to be disproportionately represented in the country’s armed services, and largely Russian-speaking volunteer battalions, such as the Dnipro-1 Regiment, were instrumental in stalling Putin’s advance when war broke out in 2014...
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