I think that a person must try, for himself, adhere to the historical truth. Which many times differs from what is written in wikipedia, especially the English version of it when it speaks of the Russian people (to be fair, also the Russian version is often biased in this regard, with an opposite sign).
"It was not a liberator" - tell it to the people who greeted the Soviet Army with flowers when they entered Vilnius (I know personally of concrete evidence). Tell it to the Jews, who were being murdered by Lithuianian nationalists, Lithuanian communists aside. Tell it to Serbs and Bulgars.
And I do not try to deny any of the the other historical facts: Stalin's repressions to start with. (By the way, what do you think would happen if some of the events which led to Soviet invasion of Chechoslovakia would happen in some european country, with americans taking the role of USSR?)
And Soviet Union was perceived as the liberator from the nazis, and not US, contrary to modern Holywood "tradition". People knew then the facts. And I do not try to depict USSR as something different from what it was.
"As for Lithuanian Vytautas, we're taking in Ruthenians running from Moscow rule for a loooong time"
Who are exactly "we"? The documents of the early Magnus Ducatus Lithuaniae were written in Latin and a Russian language variety ("old Ukranian", of course, of course..). This variety of Russian was its de facto official language.
And then these mysterious "Ruthenians".. Guagnini speaks of Russians in general ("omnibus Ruthenis"), and "gens Moscovitica" are just part of them.
Regarding history in general: what I know personally is the very short period since the 90s. And I know for a fact that Russians were not, at least until 2007, the "aggressors" the west, especially the balts, try to depict them ("forgetting" the elephant in the room, NATO expansion to the east). On the contrary, in Lithuania the aggression came mostly from lithuanians (aggression does not mean necessarily actual physical violence, it can be directed against language, culture, and history), while Russia was actively refusing to defend the rights of the Russian minority (I know this from first hand source).
So, also judging by how this period is being depicted by the west, I make my judgement also about the depiction by the west of other periods of Soviet and Russian history.
Sorry, I have work to do (as probably also you), so I will be brief.
"after russia invaded in 2014": Crimea was taken away, this yes, while the uprise in Donbass was, as far as I know, spontaneous, with tacit Russian support; both followed the coup organized by the west in Kiev (there is no doubt about this, it was an unconstitutional coup, and the west did breach an agreement - tacit perhaps, I don't recall - with Russia as Lavrov stated).
"Maybe you got cause and effect mixed up here?" - telegram channels calling to kill all russians did indeed appear after February 2022, or at least I think so.
As for ukranian nationalism, it was encouraged by the west, with end purpose to get NATO to Russia borders. You see, contrary to what americans would like to believe, there is nothing truly exceptional about your democracy. Though there are substantial differences between Athenian democracy and what you call democracy, its way to expand by luring the people governed by oligarchies with "people's government", disrupting existing order, causing chaos, war and misery - at least until it substitutes the existing oligarchies with "people's" oligarchies, is unchanged for at least 2400 years (you can try to read, if you have not read them before, Thucydides and Machiavelli's "History of Florence", preferably older translations where they do not translate "demos" as "democrats", I have seen also this lately).
"That is just a weak reason to reestablish a russian empire. And that's the main thing here happening, for some reason Ukraine does not want to be part of your empire anymore and you try to force them." - in a recent book ("Occidente e il nemico permanente") by Elena Basile, an Italian ex diplomat, she states that all of this would never happen if the west had not turned Ukraine into an anti Russian state (I would cite more, but I don't have a time to look this up). She is not a Russian propagandist, but just a person trying to reason by herself given the sources available, as so many people whose voices get silenced in the west under the pretext of "Russian propaganda", while she calls for mutual tolerance and respect of rights. (And of course there are many other examples besides her.)
I will point to the fact that before the collapse of Soviet Union, most Ukranians did not see any difference between them and Russians, and most of them voted for keeping Soviet Union intact in the referendum held on 17.3.1991 (as in most other USSR republics), ignored then by Yeltsin and other people who wanted to get their share of power sponsored by US. The division between Russia and Ukraine, as far as I know, was mostly administrative. In Odessa and Kiev people laughed at ukranian nationalism, which was then confined to L'vov and such places.
As for "hundreds of years", Russia was seen as liberator by the same eastern Europe when it fought against the Turks and nazi Germany, was seen as oppressor in some of Caucasus and in Poland, which in their turn thought it was their right to take the land of barbaric Russians. And in the Baltic states there are sources from the 16th century (Guagnini, an italian at the service of Polish court) which describe the Lithuanian Vitold governing Russians in Vilnius, stating that there seem to be more Russian Orthodox churches in Vilnius than catholic ones (and Guagnini cannot be suspected in sympathy to Russians).
So you see, you simplify history, and you do so, I think, first because you don't read, and then because your own country just changed one empire for another.
Effectively banning Russian language (they cannot, but they do try), tacit license to use violence against people who see themselves as Russians (massacre of Odessa, other cases), the ukranian nationalism which is a direct continuation of that of nazi collaborationists and jew murderers (yes, I know that Zelensky is a jew; so am I). Encouraging killing russians (all russians) on their telegram channels.
I could compose here a text with examples etc, but I don't see the point of doing this. I think this post will soon be deleted ("flagged"), the account shadow banned or whatever, and so I would simply waste my time.
You are flattering yourself. The level of US people's acquaintance with anything outside of their country is well known across the world, and I am afraid that the information you get from your media is not as informative as you think.
On my cell phone I have a video of some polish mercenaries (or volunteers) burning Russian church books, laughing and obviously pleased about what they are doing. I will share it with you if you want.
In Kiev, not long ago, a monument to Pushkin was taken down. Bulgakov is practically forbidden. I will stop here.