While I am tempted to agree with @McFaul on emotional grounds, I would take an exception on academic grounds, for two reasons. First, Western colonial enterprise in Africa and Asia was based on economic exploitation underpinned by a racist ideology.
https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1484937545523744768
Russia, as a colonial power, partook of this enterprise insofar as it was directed towards non-European peoples (Central Asia, Caucasus). Ukraine does not fit this pattern. The pattern of domination is much more in line with, say, English-Irish or English-Welsh relations.
If you don't agree, you might ask yourself if you know of any cases where, say, an ethnic Vietnamese would hold a position of power in Paris, or an Angolan in Lisbon. Also, compare economic relationship between Ukraine and Russia in the Soviet context with, say, Italy-Somalia.
The second reason that I am not too keen on the colonial framework in relation to Russia and its immediate neighbourhood is that it adopts a somewhat arbitrary division of the colonised and the colonisers.
My favourite example is Abkhazia. The Abkhazians would see Georgians as a "colonising" power whereas the Georgians would see the Russians as a "colonising" power. The reality is that they both have the potential to be colonising powers.
The same btw applies to Russia/Ukraine in relation to ethnic Russians in Ukraine. This is not to deny the fact that Russia has amassed a huge force on Ukraine's borders, has annexed a piece of a neighbouring country's territory, and quite possibly wants to annex more.
This is merely to stress that the "colonial" analytical framework does not begin to capture the complexity of this situation.
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