
The majority of Ukraine pre-civil war was populated in the east in that map, the same oblasts that didn't vote in the 2019 election because they were in a
civil war.
You know, as is literally shown on the map you posted, those are the DPR, LPR & Crimea. In an election in 2019 in which the party of regions was banned and the people in the east not allowed to vote for their own candidates, not that they were voting anyways.
Do you understand that Ukrainians voted democratically for Viktor Yanukovych in the last election held with a unified country, and the more populous eastern oblasts were disenfranchised by the Maidan, and then given no representation in the following 'elections' even though Zelensky claims dominion over them.
This isn't a subtle distinction and its a kind of important one. If Zelensky was just saying western ukraine should be a sovereign republic that holds the lands west of the dnipro and maybe some strip between it and the dpr/lpr/crimea, he wouldn't be laying claim to a hostile people who have been fighting a civil war against him. Nor would there be any need for a war, because Ukrainians could live in peace as their own western nation while the separatist regions are absorbed into Russia- as they've already been. And at this point, the war is wrapping up and we're just left seeing whether the left can absorb the facts of reality and recognize what has happened