The Russians in Ukraine weren’t happy about the Russian invasion. Most of the Azov were ethnic Russians.
I think there was more support for joining Russia than you suppose.
But the figure in which we averaged data from all the survey firms summary data hides some big differences. While the Ukrainian and Russian pollsters found similar opinions in areas controlled by the Ukrainian government, in the breakaway area, pollsters calling from Russia found higher support (70 percent) for joining Donbas with Russia than did the pollsters calling from Ukraine (16 percent). (Some respondents may have decided whether to answer the call or participate in the survey according to whether it originated in Kyiv or Moscow, or may have replied with answers that they thought the interviewers wanted to hear.)