Those only exist within the context of a separatist movement that was encouraged by Russia and the invasion and annexation of Crimea. There’s no way to separate out any action by the Ukraine government from that situation that is largely caused by Russia.

I'll once again link the following slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. First, here's the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:

here's how the election in 2004 went:

this is the 2010 election:

As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:

Painting that as "a separatist movement encouraged by Russia" is the height of dishonesty.

There’s a difference between just a base and actively operating in the region. Russia said it was sticking to its bases even as it was operating covertly. Well, maybe covertly is giving them too much credit, but they were trying and lying. Then poof! They were operating overly, a mock election was held, and Russia annexed Crimea.

Just like NATO covertly planned and executed a color revolution that then poof overthrew the legitimate government in Ukraine.