It's interesting how casually we replace concern for the population with concern for the political entity. No, the Ukrainian identity will not cease to exist with the replacement of the political entity.
Children are routinely taken from parents and shipped off to Russia. Parents are encarcerated, conscripted, or slaughtered.
Russias attitude towards Ukraine has turned borderline genocidal since the start of this war.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Rus...