Why Is Russian Spoken In Ukraine?

You can support the humanitarian effort to help Ukrainians here:
donation.babynyar.org/en/
Other videos in project Ukraine, check them out:
• Project Ukraine
Around 30% of Ukrainians consider Russian to be their native language, and Russian remains the ‘most spoken language’ in Ukraine - and that was even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine starting on the 24th of February, 2022. But why are there so many Russian speakers in Ukraine? How different are the Russian and Ukrainian languages? How did the Russian language first come to Ukraine? How was language addressed in Ukraine in the Soviet Period? How does language affect politics in Ukraine? Find out answers to these questions and more in today’s video on the Russian language in Ukraine.
Music Used:
Lost Frontier - Kevin MacLeod
Clean Air- Kevin MacLeod
Intrepid- Kevin MacLeod
Dhaka - Kevin MacLeod
Hiding Your Reality - Kevin MacLeod
Envision - Kevin MacLeod
Sunday Dub - Kevin MacLeod
Send me an email if you'd be interested in doing a collaboration! [e-mail]
#Ukraine #ProjectUkraine #Documentary

[@IKEMENOsakaman]

I am a linguist and a historian who speaks Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Polish languages of which the first two are my native languages, and I endorse this video as correct, well researched and informative. Well done!

[@antimatter_nvf]

@@vKazak8165 I think he meant that he speaks Belarusian and Russian natively

[@lordmike9384]

which language is the most difficult to learn? i speak polish fluently and some russian.

[@arthousecommons3802]

@@lordmike9384 polish. The rest are pretty simple.

[@lordmike9384]

@@arthousecommons3802 polish has w. i don't think east slavic languages have the w sound at all.

[@MrTaxiRob]

@@lordmike9384 unless you're Chekov from Star Trek who can't pronounce Vs correctly or consistently

[@MultiLiam24]

I think that the war will profoundly reduce the number of Russian speakers in Ukraine. For example, German was actually still regularly spoken in many communities within the USA in the early 1900s but stopped being spoken due to involvement within the First World War.

[@jeanssold2131]

Yeah, Putin diminishes the Russian-speaking world for his ambitions. Very sad to see this as a Russian

[@anti79]

Russian is my native language and I've switched to Ukrainian recently. I don't want to have anything to do with russia.

[@marmac83]

Germany, for example, didn't directly border the United States, and there wasn't modern mass-media.

[@anthonyoer4778]

@@anti79 would Ukraine adopt the Latin alphabet to alienate Russia?

[@ellengiannakou3806]

@@anthonyoer4778 Cyrillic alphabet is not a “Russian exclusively” alphabet. It’s used in all eastern and south Slavic countries.

[@vexillonerd]

Ukrainian Galicia was part of Poland for a long time, but no way Polish was more popular. Poles mostly lived in some cities, like Lviv. But the area was totally Ruthenian (old name of Ukrainian).

[@perfectmazda3538]

yep, also majority spoke Ukrainian language without being oppressed as much as in Russian empire, so the Ukrainian language got saved mostly thanks to people who spoke it in polish Galicia.

[@elimalinsky7069]

The Austro-Hungarian Empire divided Galicia into West and East in accordance to ethnicity and language. The West was predominantly inhabited by Poles speaking Polish, while the East was predominantly inhabited by Ukrainians speaking Ukrainian. This dividing line between West and East Galicia became the border between Poland and Ukraine following the Potsdam agreements in 1945 to set the border seperating Poland and Ukraine (then Ukrainian SSR) along ethnic lines.

[@vexillonerd]

@@elimalinsky7069 More like Austrians added polish lands to Galician Kingdom. Since, original Galicia is only Eastern Galicia. But yeah, you are right.

[@asengo141]

Yes, it's nice to know that there exists a natural dialect continium from somewhat standard Ukrainian to standard Polish along the border. I travelled in eastern Poland along the border and the laguage there is a mix of Polish Ukrainian and Belarussian. This continium is a sign of relative lack of imposition of another language, where people naturally acquired elements of their neighbours' tounges and developed their own dialects.

[@SzalonyKucharz]

@@vexillonerd The full name of that Kingdom was Galicia, Lodomeria and the Grand Duchy of Krakow with Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator.

[@expandedhistory]

I’m absolutely excited for Project Ukraine! Having majority of my favorite History content creators such as you Hilbert along side with many others is amazing to see. I’m looking forward all the future videos!

[@historywithhilbert146]

It's been a pleasure - looking forward to seeing your video as well!

[@jamesdom9887]

@@historywithhilbert146 as I've read about the dombas area it say that the people of dombas we're treated unfairly. They were going on strikes against Ukraine in the 90s. Ukraine cut the wages in the dombas area also... Ukraine didn't want dombas to teach Russian either. Seems to me Ukraine has been oppressing dombas way before 2014.

[@_Lumiere_]

@@jamesdom9887 the donbass was one of the richest regions of Ukraine before 2014, so a lot changed.

[@jamesdom9887]

@@_Lumiere_ how can you say that when the dombas was going on strikes throughout the 90s against west Ukraine? Donetsk wasn't doing good financially in 08 either. Do u knw about Ukraine shutting down the mines in dombas??? Dombas history shows since the 90s dombas has been poor and east Ukraine has been the cause

[@kidmohair8151]

@@historywithhilbert146 may I inquire why in the top right of the end screen there is a Wagner Group...ad?

[@vadymkopyeyko1583]

I'm a Surzhek speaker from Vinnytsia (central-western Ukraine), i speak basically a mixture of the language, something like 80% Ukrainian and 20% Russian, in my city you can find people who speak strictly Ukrainian or strictly Russian, depending of the environment, usually if you go to places whit less qualified jobs they tend to speak more Russian while in the more qualified jobs they tend to speak more Ukrainian. What also depend if you are in a city or in a village, it depends also by your age.

[@user-ly9oe9vs5d]

Ого, ты из того города, где живëт ОН?

[@vadymkopyeyko1583]

@@user-ly9oe9vs5d папич? Конечно я даже знаю в какой улице он живёт

[@haulawcoast]

@@vadymkopyeyko1583 винницианский мафиози

[@Quickshifter123]

Так так так, пані та панове, бачу вельми інтелігентна публіка зібралась. Доречі вважаю суржик зневагою до обох мов, будь ласка не ображайся. Дуже багато чую про популяризацію української, але зовсім мало про її якість. Терпіти не можу елементарне «шо» Ми ж не кажемо «навішо», то чому ж кажемо «якшо»?

[@anti79]

@@Quickshifter123 а ну не гоніть на "шо", це унікальне культурне надбання Одещини

[@ThePacificWarChannel]

So proud to be part of #ProjectUkraine =) amazing videos by all the great content creators! 🇺🇦

[@R0DBS2]

You got great content, keep it up 👍

[@ImpreccablePony]

As a Belarussian I am also considering switching to Belarusian as my primary language. It's kind of difficult though because of the force of habit and the dominant Russian environment.

[@darktip]

Keep it up ☺

[@ayondash7063]

You have to overthrow lukashenku first.

[@archeofutura_4606]

I hope you can! If there are enough Belarusian speakers around just speak your language, even if they reply in Russian. Gotta get the ball rolling somehow, right?

[@terrorgaming459]

@@ayondash7063 no lukashenko is based

[@dancooper4443]

Do it. It's never too late for russified people. Even Zelensky did it and he speaks Ukrainian fluently now. Belarusian will die out because of the russification policies. Lukashenko is the worst kind of traitor.

[@HollywoodMarine0351]

This is an excellent and educational video. Especially for me who is an American married to a Ukrainian (Kyiv) who predominantly speaks Russian. My brother’s Ukrainian wife (Ivano-Frankivsk), predominantly speaks Ukrainian. Both wives speak both languages but they generally converse in English mixed with Russian and Ukrainian with each other.

[@mykytka7133]

I'm from Ukraine, Dnipro. It is city in Central Ukraine, but sometimes it also considered Eastern Ukraine. My city is mostly Russian-speaking but you also can meet Surzhyk and Ukrainian here. My native language is Russian, but 1 year ago i decided to switch on Ukrainian. There were a lot of reasons: I find Ukrainian just more beautiful I spoke in Russian but with a little bit Ukrainian accent and my russian teacher at school often corrected me I learned a lot of history and i thought it's unfair that most of Ukraine speaks rus. I traveled to Western Ukraine, where Ukrainian is mostly spoken and i liked its culture. And of course, political reasons. 1 year ago it was a little bit strange to switch language, although there was some tendency. My friends also tried to speak Ukrainian with me. Maybe they just wanted to support me. But in 24 February 2022 everything changed. A lot of people claimed the will switch on Ukrainian. (About half of my friends now speak mostly ukr) Most of people refused to watch russian content, it led to popularizing Ukrainian content. A lot of people don't want to speak rus cause they dont want someone consider them russians. So, finally, Ukrainian now is dominant in Ukraine and i think, after end of the war a lot of Russian-speaking areas will become Ukrainian-speaking. At least fifty-fifty. Russian will no more be lingua-franca in the region.

[@Faradona]

Привіт з Івано-Франківська

[@mykytka7133]

@@Faradona Здоров, земляче!

[@WhoamI-fl4rw]

Згідно статистики 2017 року,налічувалося 67%україномовних людей,російська мова ще з років незалежності не була більш вживаною ніж українська,але думаю після останніх подій,процент вживання однозначно збільшиться.

[@mykytka7133]

@@WhoamI-fl4rw ну, просто тут така справа, що багато з тих розмовляє українською з народження вимушені переходити на російську в певних умовах (прийнамні, так було до недавнього часу) Так що ти правий, уркхномовних дійсно більше, але російська ж домінантна. Ну зараз все виправляється і, як я і написав, реально відчувається перевага українською. Можеш знайти в рекомендації на ютубі, там вже майже немає російського контенту. І ще, багато з тих хто навіть в сім'ї спілкується російською вважають своєю рідною мовою саме українську. Просто тому що поняття "рідна мова" дуже розтяжиме. Навіть я не знаю, яка моя рідна мова. Наче з дитинства спілкуюся російською, але українська тоже мене завжди мене оточувала і думати мені зараз легше українською. Та й російська мені вже, чесно кажучи, огидною стала. Неприємно називати її "рідною"

[@D.Aniel89]

Привіт з Харкова!)

[@manyasher]

I am Ukrainian and I want to thank you for your contribution into #projectUkraine, it is very valuable for us! 🥹❤️ I want to add that our citizens right now see in real time how russians use language as a weapon against us. For example, one of the first things they do on occupied territories is that they insist to switch all education process in schools to russian language. Forcibly deported kids to russia are also forced to learn russian, those kids are just hostages there… a lot of pain was brought to us for the last centuries from russia, and that issue with a language appeared to be one of the most dangerous.

[@IzzyChopChop]

and now I hear that the orcs are withholding pensions and other support unless the residents of the occupied regions get russian passports. I also saw a flyer, advertising changing your Ukrainian surname to a russian sounding one. russian orcs are doing what they're only good at....g-e-n-o-c--i-d-e

[@Niamhvnl]

(im a Ukrainian who speaks russian as my first langauge, from Odesa so dont take this as an overview) Before i left Ukraine due to obvious reasons i can note that though everyone basically does speak russian it isn't always prefered in formal contexts for example you won't always order food in russian unless the clerk doesn't understand you (though you won't usually translate ukrainian to russian since its considered rude but rather explain in russian what you meant) but in day to day speaking its a wierd hybrid where it would be a mix between english words, russian words and ukrainian sometimes even in the same sentense. Though on note about the laws about having Ukrainian as main and only language, most people i know actually are for it and overall the attitude is quite possitive about it since even many who don't speak ukrainian have an attitude that they are saddened that they weren't taught that so people view it as giving the next generation something they didn't have. Edit: please dont take any of this as data, rather just what a girl from this region can help for perspective :D

[@MrMediator24]

As someone from Crimea I have quite similar experience. But when I went to Truskovets I mainly spoke ukrainian out of respect (though sometimes it was a bit hard). I really hope one day I can return, absolutely beautiful city, just like Lviv and help the rebuilding effort

[@xijinping6738]

@@MrMediator24 hope that crimeans would return to Ukraine after this horrible war

[@Niamhvnl]

@@MrMediator24 Same bro, wish one day i can come to crimea again. such a great place before everything happend.

[@katerynaivzhenko6716]

Yep, my mom is also like that, she regrets not being able to go to Ukrainian school in her childhood and laments that now it is harder for her to use Ukrainian casually than it is for me

[@jamesdom9887]

I have a question for Ukrainians... Is there a view of prejudice or racism against blacks in your country? The Peace Corp gave warnings to blacks trying to help to be conscious about Ukrainians calling black "n" words or monkeys. Is this true?

[@jvdantist]

My first language was russian. Because of russian invasion i started to speak Ukrainian. My children speak both languages. All my ethnic russian friends started to speak Ukrainian too. Also interesting fact: mostly their parents moved to Ukraine after passport reform in 1974. Till this reform it was slavery in USSR. Peasants didn’t have rights to move from villages and were obliged to work almost for free.

[@mr.helsing7192]

Same, bro. Дякую за патріотичну налаштованість. Не всі, на жаль, того розуміють та відчувають.

[@wuhaninstituteofvirology5226]

If the battle of Taiwan ever starts, seems like people will also talk about the difference between Traditional and Simplified Mandarin.

[@archeofutura_4606]

@@wuhaninstituteofvirology5226 that’s more of a difference in script I believe. Taiwan also has multiple Chinese languages such as Hokkien and Fujianese, which might become more prominent in case of invasion

[@voxpopuli5324]

Молодець! Бажаю успіху!

[@larazaremba3758]

Ви молодець! На жаль, живемо в такі часи, коли мову від політики відділити неможливо.

[@kateryna9274]

Love your in-depth analysis! My "native language" is actually surzhyk. Which made my life difficult for a while when I moved from my hometown, haha. Not even because of linguistic difficulties, we speak both languages fluently. But more of a mental barrier. Hard to explain, but in that environment, if you don't speak like your peers, you look weird. As time went on, I met a lot of surzhyk speakers from different regions, and some words are not even close to my variant. Ironic, but everywhere I worked in Kyiv, Russian was preferred so I kinda adapted to that. Tell me about the oppression of Russian speakers.

[@acabosasha]

When the author of this video states in the end he feel sorry for Russian speakers in Ukraine, in real life you living in Ukraine and speaking surzhyk (which is rather Ukrainian with a bit of Russian mixed to it) I feeled pressured into speaking Russian (which i spoked for 8 years studying in university and working in Kyiv after finishing uni). And I know that surzhyk speakers as well as Ukrainian speakers were considered someone lesser that a russian speaking person, meaning you often won't be taken seriously. And for a long period of time russian was a language of prestige and intelligence when Ukrainian and surzhyj - language of village weirdos or something lesser than russian and that feeling was everywhere so even when no one directly said it to you you know it and had to consider switching to russian to feel 'normal', to be accepted in the big cities of central and east of Ukraine. So you really should be deeply sorry for Ukrainian language and those who speaks it since it went through a lot of attempts to destroy and erase it existence (which was partly achieved resulting in 8 millions of ethnic Ukrainians considering russian as their mother tongue and existence of surzhuk which is also result of Ukrainians pressured and forced to speak russian for centuries)

[@alexeysaphonov232]

@@acabosasha there are 50+ shades of surzhyk (in Belarus we have a similar thing called trasianka). In fact the official language is a thing for: 1. Government (so that everyone undestands the law the same way) 2. Public education (so that smart people understand each other writtings and speeches) 3. A bit of common culture (there are always regional cultures as well). All the rest is very private and isn't regulated by any law.

[@mitchyoung93]

@@acabosasha No, surzhyk is not a 'mix' of languages, it's a group of dialects that represent the shading of one manner of east Slavic speak to another. 'Ukrainian' was standardized by east Slavic speakers living under Hapsburg rule and was intentionally constructed to be as different from standard Russian as possible. Same phenomenon as in the Jugoslavic area, where Croats try very hard to distinguish their language from Serbian.

[@denisgreen9648]

Your native language can't be surzhyk at least because thats not a language even

[@kateryna9274]

@@denisgreen9648 that's what the quotation marks are for, dude

[@Smroadgi1]

As a person from Eastern Europe I think it's interesting how much more prevalent Russian propaganda is in the West than it is here. The reason for this is that the Western countries never experienced Russian opression and Russian imperialism, while history of most nations of Central and Eastern Europe is littered with Russian meddling, Russian invasions and overall Russian bullshit. There's a reason why countries like the Baltic States, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and my home country Poland react so decisively and seem to have no doubt as to who the "bad guy" is. Russia has always been the "bad guy" in our history. They're still using the same rhetoric they've been using for half a thousand years. Once you see that, it becomes much much easier to differentiate between the victim and the obvious attacker. A lot of people in the West (especially Western leftists) in their search for "unbiased view" and "believing both sides equally" have fallen straight in the hands of the Russian narrative. Here, in Central and Eastern Europe we just instinctively distrust Russia and know that every single word coming out of Kremlin is just propaganda that's supposed to make people support them and help them justify more and more atrocities.

[@Smroadgi1]

@@gundissalinus I'm pretty sure that when an eagle looks at a rabbit it sees prey, which actually makes your comment a pretty accurate (even if unintentionally so) metaphore for Russia which indeed has always been a predator preying on other countries.

[@MrTaxiRob]

Strangely enough, all of the leftist KZbinrs that I follow have come out against the invasion. I had no way of knowing what their opinion on the topic would be before it happened. All of them have and do continue to rightfully criticize US foreign policy, but we all see who the bad guy is just as well as you do.| The leftists who don't tend to believe in the Mearsheimer theory based on the (totally bogus) assumption that NATO exists solely to contain Russia, and that Russia was denied membership (but a little bit of research clearly shows that Russia never formally applied for membership.) The other thing they have in common, at least here in the US, is watching RT America and thinking it's a real leftist news source. They probably think the same thing about pravda.ru, which is owned by one of Putin's oligarch buddies. So yeah, you're spot on in your assessment of the effects of Russian propaganda on the Western "left." I can't imagine it's any different in western Europe where they'd vote for a fascist government rather than help Ukraine maintain its existence.

[@Emanon...]

Being objective and being neutral is not the same. I have no sympathy for Russian dreams of expansion. Poland and their outright xenophobic policies the last decade doesn't exactly make them a trusted source either. Especially since the current government have clear power ambitions for Poland.

[@user-pj7tz2ux8l]

Agreed. Western "independent freethinkers" and "truth always lies in between" midwits made me cringe so much it's unreal during this war. The ease with which they fall for obvious russian propaganda is embarrassing.

[@potatofuryy]

This. They’re doing the same thing they’ve done for hundreds of years. Hell, they even tried to pull off Manila shots 2.0

[@warbler1984]

The Russians should remember just cause they speak a language doesn't make you that ethnicity...nearly all of us speak English in Ireland...but good luck convincing people that we're British

[@last_aid_kit]

Just wondering, are people concerned that Irish/Gaelic language is so unpopular? I see here parallels with Ukrainian vs Russian too - the bigger empire tries to unify conquered people in the same way.

[@miscellaneous263]

@@last_aid_kit Good point, I've always felt there is similarity between Ukraine and Ireland in this regards. Both nations oppressed by large empires. Also can't help but feel some sort of sympathy towards IRA, despite it being controversial.

[@leechlord8234]

Yeah I’m sure if they knew that they would give up their arms and surrender

[@jameskoziol5405]

@@last_aid_kit but I think the different is, even tho irish population was made to speak english, there wasnt any real attempt to remove the Irish identity, instead for most of the 18th/19th century Irishness was seen apart of the British Identity (abit not as much as Scottishness and Englishness, with people on the fringe of academia during that time not promoting), that was until the Easter uprising

[@D.Aniel89]

USA, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries: 👀

[@dreddfan01]

I work with a few guys who have gone down somewhat of a conspiracy rabbit hole who liked the whole 'russia is only protecting Russian speakers' line. As we are in ireland I pointed out that using that logic, the Republic of ireland should be part of the UK. They got quiet very quickly coz they also like to spout the usual republican retoric that's common here.

[@katerynaivzhenko6716]

Yep, and Ontario should be declared part of France, and then there would be sooo many questions for Switzerland... (Edit: it was sarcasm. Just in case it wasn't clear.)

[@unilajamuha91]

@@katerynaivzhenko6716 You meant Quebec?

[@Allan_son]

@@unilajamuha91 He probably meant Québec, but there are parts of easten Ontario that were settled by French speakers from Québec

[@blizardstorm9667]

But the difference is that Donbas, aswell as transnostroa WANT to be apart of Russia

[@rodjones117]

@@katerynaivzhenko6716 What questions could there be about Switzerland?

[@alexanderkarayannis6425]

For some 72 years, with territories from Poland and then Czechoslovakia added later on, Ukraine had been an integral part of the Soviet Union, which meant compulsory education in Russian, intermarriage and total assimilation into Russian speaking Soviet life and culture for as long as most living people today can remember... Famous people born there? Anyone from Golda Meir, to Leon Trotsky to Raisa Gorbachova not to mention the closest ties to former Soviet Leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev...Why is Russian spoken there?... Hardly a surprise!...

[@alexanderkarayannis6425]

Actually, Raisa Gorbacheva was born in Rubtsovsk, Russia but never considered herself anything other than a Ukrainian and proud Soviet Citizen...Other famous people born there never had anything other than Russian as their first language, even though some in later life spoke other languages due to relocation... Golda Meir spoke English as the American citizen she became later, not to mention Hebrew as the first woman Prime Minister of Israel... Trotsky was also quite the multilingual speaker, but always with a thick Russian accent...Other notables in Russian History born in Ukraine were the famous Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Korolev, father of the Soviet Space Program, acclaimed actor and Director Sergei Bondarchuk, and many much younger Hollywood celebrities who still speak at least some Russian, even though the Soviet Union was finished by 1991, that is, over 30 years ago...(Namely Mila Jovovich, Mila Kunis, Olga Kurylenko and many others)

[@katerynaivzhenko6716]

Good point, thank you! It was also always mysterious to me why Soviet was good for enforcing Russian as a language of education, but if Ukraine does it - it's discriminating? It's national language, dimmit, if you have Ukrainian passport you are supposed to know it =/

[@rogink]

Yes, I'd like to have heard more about what education was like in USSR. My guess is that Russian was the 'first' language in any of the now independent republics.

[@jeanssold2131]

@@katerynaivzhenko6716 yeah, though it was still wrong to abolish its regional status, it's a pretty huge minority language after all

[@NotShowingOff]

But this is really about political autonomy. You are more than your language and your ancestry. It’s funny, everyone wants the autonomy when it’s convenient.

[@darthvader4594]

Putin:We are launching this special military operation to save the russian speaking ukrainians and ethnic russians from oppression. Also putin:*has entire families of russophone people in Ukraine wiped out in missile strikes.

[@samy7013]

@Abdulaziz Mohammed : Thank you for bringing those up, brother. 👍

[@sagapoetic8990]

@Abdulaziz Mohammed There is a Project Palestine?

[@perfectmazda3538]

@Abdulaziz Mohammed what are those ?

[@MrTaxiRob]

@Abdulaziz Mohammed Project Palestine would get all of them kicked off of KZbin

[@HistoriaGraecia]

Very interesting video, you keep hitting the interesto-meter! So glad to be part of #projectukraine, got to meet incredible people and plus make some change!

[@Neosart1]

As a russian speaker in Ukraine i never encountered any discrimination ever over 30+ years of my life here.(even now everyone speak the language they want) Ofc i can also switch to Ukrainian easily since its my native language if needed. The sad part that the Ukranian speakers are really the target in this russian invasion, since orcs consider all "non russian" (by default ) speakers as enemy/nazi/nato spy/etc etc In fact i've heard a plenty of reports from citizens of occupied territories that claim that they hunt down arrest/kill everyone who speaks Ukranian. Never trust russian propoganda. The language you speak does not dictate your nationality. Me speaking spanish doesn't make me a hispanic. Gracias.

[@MrZenGuitarist]

Never trust Russian propaganda - oh, yes; you could say that again!! That's a trapdoor that has rung perfectly clear for at least the last 4-5 generations or so, to the entire world! Putin is so cynical that I'm "even" tempted to believe that he (w. his "administration" of oligarchs) probably not 'only' invented the so-called "threats" of the Russian language and 'people' - but probably also incited and encouraged it. By the export of 'Russian' books (or more or less Russian propaganda) - as well as intentional bombing and shelling of people living in eastern Ukraine...as have actually been independently verified - as well as 'everything' in between, so to speak. As if taken straight from old textbook-tactics which goes back all the way to Roman times; Divide & conquer (or 'Divide et Impera', I believe but correct me if I'm wrong!) Anything to get the 'pretext' he needed for further annexation! Which isn't merely a real shame (understatement!) for BOTH the Ukrainian and Russians (and their respective language) - but, I imagine at least, must be viewed - by the Ukrainians in particular - as a 'mere' continuation of the suppression of Ukrainian people(s?) as well as language that goes back all the way back to Stalin, and beyond.

[@intel386DX]

This sounds very crazy . Like Ukrainian propaganda.

[@Aggressive_architect]

@@intel386DXwhy? My mom is Siberia born was one of those who were sent to "populate"Ukraine, she is 67 and lives in Ukraine since she was 12. She doesn’t speak Ukrainian, but fully understands it. Never had any issue. But funny how it’s you having "Yugoslavia" and Soviet star as your profile pic, want to push some "Ukrainian propaganda" narrative😂 Your country doesn’t exist since 2008 and Soviet Union will never reappear how much you want it.

[@intel386DX]

@@Aggressive_architect my country doesn't exists, but yours is going in the same direction. War destroys everything.

[@Aggressive_architect]

@@intel386DX borders might change, but i highly doubt it will disappear from a map totally

[@harry.tallbelt6707]

This is the best summary of this question I've seen on the internet, I am genuinely impressed! (I'm from one of those Ukraine's Russian speaking cities, btw.) I would probably not agree that speaking Russian is politicised here, except maybe if a high ranking politician addresses the whole nation in Russian, that would be odd. Generally, I would say that in Ukraine speaking Russian in predominantly Ukrainian speaking parts of the country is much more normalised than doing otherwise, probably because of all the Soviet heritage. What I think can happen after the war, is normalisation of speaking Ukrainian in Russian speaking parts of the country, because it would be perfectly understandable why someone wouldn't want to switch to Russian. I don't think speaking Russian will become a taboo though. Because the Russian speaking cities are suffering the most from this war (not mine, btw, I'm fine) and because the Russian speaking soldiers die as much as Ukrainian speaking ones, I don't think that the argument of speaking Russian being not patriotic enough would hold. Honestly, it's a shame how much of a problem Russian propaganda made of this question. We tend to take pride in being one of few post-Soviet states that managed to produce at least some kind of democracy (simultaneously critiquing the hell out of it), so the idea that Ukraine's Russian speakers (which are, as the video just told us, lots of people) can defend their rights against the supposed oppression only with a help of foreign military intervention is offensively dumb 😓

[@_Lumiere_]

Well said. Are you by any chance from Poltava?

[@jawshvancouver2754]

Tbh the baltics are the only successful democracies that came out of the USSR,

[@Crypt0n1an]

Total propaganda piece! The overwhelming majority of Crimea is ethnic Russian(even by statistics accepted by the west, some 65%) even more are Russophones and even more are pro Russia as evidenced by the referendum of 2014(90%+, which btw was verified by independent observers and is without question legitimate). This is only one example that runs counter to the narrative of this video and the west in general. To point out the rest would require a 5000 word essay if not a whole book. Shame one you Hilbert or whatever your name is, shameful western propaganda! To Further reiterate how much misinformation is in this propaganda piece at one point in reference to Sloboda Ukraine he calls it "the borderlands of Ukraine". That is like saying "the borderlands of the borderlands" totally nonsensical and not remotely what the term means. Sloboda on old slavic word for freedom and Ukraine literally meaning borderland, basically made reference to a borderland that was free of taxation. Whose borderland was it however, well, since this land was part of the Russian empire means it was Russian borderland NOT "the borderlands of Ukraine" as this a-historic nitwit seems to posit. Most of this video is filled with blatant lies, neat trick isn't it, get enough things right but strategically twist the truth in some areas to fit your narrative. What these propagandists also conveniently ignore is that most of Novorossia and Donbas was NEVER ethnic Ukrainian or ethnic Russian land. This was not ancestral lands to the eastern slavic people. He correctly points out that these lands where populated by mostly ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians after they were conquered and assimilated into the Russian empire but what he conveniently ignores is that the overwhelming majority as per the 1897 census where ethnic Russians(Over 70% with the lowest figure i could find was 66% in one of the Oblasts). We are talking about Odessa Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Zaporozhia Oblast, Donbas region, and Kharkov Oblast ALL without question were overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Russians after these regions where taken over from the Ottomans in the late 18th century. Prior to that ALL these lands were foreign to ethnic Ukrainians in a history going back to the first inhabitants of these lands the nomadic indo european tribes of the Scythians Cimmerians and Sarmatians and the Greek city states founded mostly along the shores starting from the 9th century BC. The Greeks the Tatars and any number of other minorities have greater claim to these regions than do the ethnic Ukrainians. Pray tell where exactly is Russia focusing it's military operations, that's right ALL of the above mentioned Oblasts. They want nothing to do with western Ukraine nor any lands where there isn't a clear majority of Russophone/Pro Russian population. Note that during the soviet era there was a concerted effort towards Ukrainianization of these regions so as to create more unity between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. Krushchev even gifted Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 to further facilitate the union of Ukrainians and Russians but alas history and the west had other plans given how fervently they aided and supported the more nationalistic elements among ethnic Ukrainians, particularly the Ukrainian nazis with whom the Soviets fought a bloody civil war against for 10 years after wwii till 1955 when they eventually defeated these ultranationalists and nazis. Following this conflict these nazis were given refuge in the west, particularly West Germany and the US. Upon the dissolution of the soviet union these ultranationalists made their way back to Ukraine whereupon a new wave of Ukrainianization commenced facilitated by the west/US leading up to the events of 2014(coup, oppression/suppression of ethnic Russians and their language, civil war etc) and culminating in the most recent events leading up to the current war we find ourselves in. So how these ultranationalists can claim to be fighting for "their" land and refuse to give even an inch of Mariupol, a city founded by Russians populated by Russians where Ukrainians were nowhere to be found until the Russian empire conquered the rest of Ukraine in the late 18th century(thereby allowing free movement for Ukrainians to move to these new found eastern lands) is beyond me. Hypocrisy at it's finest! Of course all of this is conveniently ignored in this obvious propaganda piece.

[@exxxxoskeleton]

NATO dismantled the Soviet Union with force. Russia seeks to reclaim its land in the same way. Strength not petty laws determine the fate of nations

[@blacktemplar2323]

@@exxxxoskeleton That is simply and utterly wrong. The USSR dismantled itself without any NATO Intervention, or do you remember german, frech and US Soldiers marching into Kiev to push out russia? And russia currently demonstrates very well that while it may claim to be a superpower it is barely a regional power.

[@bohdaniszczuk6756]

You did not mention that among young people living in Ukraine have began speaking more Ukrainian and not Russian they have shown more interest in the Ukrainian language and culture and Ukrainian should be used otherwise it will disappear as a unique language.

[@Brslld]

Yes!

[@elizabethduplat5998]

Really really love your videos on Ukraine and Russia. The facts are laid out in such a clear way (and that's not easy, because it's so complicated). Thank you!

[@nonameking4874]

28 minutes of content!? I’m watching every single minute from start to finish. I love History with Hilbert. -Marcus from San Francisco, United States.

[@billberndtson]

Yeah! More language videos! Do a collab with Paul from Langfocus! I was delighted to see you mention his channel as I've been a fan of his for a long time and didn't know you two were acquainted. :)

[@alex-sv8ru]

You've explained an incredibly complex topic in such a concise and interesting manner. Thanks Hilbert!

[@asengo141]

I'm a Russian-speaking Ukrainian from Kyiv. I wanna thank you for a great video explaining a very tricky thing so well! Whether the Ukrainian government should continue its language policy or relax it to "allow people to speak and read literature in the language they want" - I do support Ukraine's language policy, although I think some protection to minority languages must be added. These laws didn't ban russian literature, nor even all books from russia, and it definitely didn't opress speaking russian in any sphere of life. It added a way of banning individual books coming from the aggressor state (russia), and this ban can be challenged in court. As for other spheres of life, the laws made sure that as a Ukrainian speaker in Ukraine, you don't have to absolutely know Russian in order to buy groceries or a cup of coffee, that's it. The reality is that even after 30 years of independence, speaking Ukrainian in big cities in the east and middle of Ukraine was peceived as being "from the countryside", so many were forced to learn Russian in order to communicate with their peers in school, at work, and other spheres of life. As a native Russian speaker, I have never felt any discrimination in that regard, while many of my Ukrainian-speaking friends have felt it on many occasions. So yes, I believe Ukrainian speakers must be able to use their own language, while non-native speakers should be able to use the official language too. On the other hand, I think Ukrainians would absolutely not tolerate suppression of other minority languages, including Russian, as in private life you must be able use any language you wish.

[@user-hu6xi8cr7c]

100% погоджуюся

[@mitchyoung93]

No, all official documents must be in Ukrainian. No post-secondary education in Russian. The laws specifically exempted other minority languages, but targeted Ukrainian. Clear effort to strangle Russian speaking in the territories called 'Borderland'.

[@intel386DX]

It is very complicated situation. On one side as you say. The majority of people in Ukraine understands only Russian and minority speaks Ukrainian and understands Russian. Those who understands only Ukrainiana are very few people in a fact. So for good or not the Russia is the orbeous choise. Even for me as fluent Bulgarian and very good serbo-croatian speaker , Russian is cutie a bit intelligible, but I don't understand even a bit Ukrainiana or Belarusian even by reading it , may be very, very little.

[@alexbattin6482]

@@intel386DX Most russian-speakers also understand Ukrainian. Unless you had an exception (like your family were military personnel stationed in Ukraine but were from outside Ukraine), you had to take a few years of Ukrainian language course in school. They might not be comfortable speaking it because they are so used to speaking russian, such as the case with my family. But the vast majority understand it well enough.

[@danieldmelniki8834]

Grateful for this Playlist! @Kings and Generals & Company!!

[@kazakhdoge1822]

Nobody was better for the decrease of the Russian language spoken in Ukraine than Russia itself cause the most damage in Ukraine was caused in places where Russian was predominant. Now Ukrainians are more united than ever and quickly switching to Ukrainian if they spoke Russian as their first language.

[@noneyabusiness3253]

I remember early on watching a video of Ukrainian soldiers walking along and looting a destoryed russian convoy and one of the soldiers who was a russian speaker was swearing that if he lived through the war he’d never speak a word of russian again.

[@ivansmirnov7342]

Ukrainian gov straight up banned Russian language from being used in official documentation in 2014. Why do you think the south - east got mad at them all of a sudden? Cuz Putin? Phah.

[@rulerofroombas1443]

@@noneyabusiness3253 I don’t think there’s anything to loot even if one wanted to

[@miscellaneous263]

@@rulerofroombas1443 why? ammunition, for instance

[@kazakhdoge1822]

@@ivansmirnov7342 Ukraine never banned using Russian, only restricted it from being a regional language and banned publications from Russia

[@Mykola_Kovalenko]

I support tough Ukrainization. There are reasons for this. Let me tell you the story of one person. My story. I was born in Donetsk. I lived there all my life. When I went to school, I sincerely wondered why I should teach Ukrainian, if everyone around speaks Russian (I met Ukrainian only on television and in books). My mother explained to me "We live in Ukraine, so we must know Ukrainian." I grew up thinking that Russia and Ukraine are very similar. Narratives like "one nation" and others have always hung in the air. But we should pay tribute to the teachers of Ukrainian language and literature for instilling love for our culture by all possible methods (as well as to thank the terrible teachers of Russian language and literature, for which I began to dislike Russian). This went on for some time, and in 2014 the war began. Our family was forced to evacuate the city. (As I remember now, we had only one bag for each, we took the last train, after which the railway was blocked by enemy forces.) We moved to an old, almost abandoned, a half-ruined family house in a village in Sumy region... 25 km to the border with Russia. Then we thought to wait for the summer and come back ... Who could have imagined that the "summer" would last for 8 years. I graduated from our village school. He entered the University of Kiev (where I am currently graduating). About six months ago, I decided to switch completely to Ukrainian (it's hard to turn around when almost all your close acquaintances from relatives to friends speak Russian). But I did not reject the Russian aspect of my life. I continued, for example, to watch Russian KZbin, anime dubbed in Russian, and so on. And a couple of months ago, on February 24, I woke up at 5 am from a call from my aunt from near Kharkiv. "Hide, the war has begun! We are being fired upon!" Then I heard explosions outside the window. A couple of days later, half of my family, who was at home at the time, found themselves in the rear of the enemy forces. Once again, my family had to look for a way out and evacuate from the SECOND HOME. After such a story, and of course after all the upheavals associated with the actions of the enemy in Bucha, Kharkov, Mariupol, I can not help but reject everything Russian. The Russian language has become one of the reasons for Russia's aggression. The Russian language is what binds you to their country. I understood this, and now I am absolutely convinced that everything connected with Russia must be eradicated. And not just language, but everything they call their "culture". It was a story, on the example of one man, of how Russia, through its actions, turned a man completely loyal to them in the beginning into a patriot of Ukraine and a nationalist. And now we have hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of such stories. Ukraine has united in the face of the threat of destruction. And now we must not miss this opportunity. Thanks to everyone who read this to the end)

[@Mykola_Kovalenko]

And btw, thanks for the video.) It's realy good work

[@HeadhuntexGamer]

Wow... thanks for writing this. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I have to wonder, do you, as a Donetsk born person believe in the polls? Do people want to be Russia? Or is it only the two cities? Putin makes like its the whole Donbass region. Thanks.

[@Mykola_Kovalenko]

​@@HeadhuntexGamer , yes, in 2014 there were many people who would like to be part of Russia, but still it should be said that they were not the predominant force. It is also worth mentioning that in 1991, thousands of miners from Donbass came to Kyiv to support independence. And the same thing happened in 2014, when many people came from Donbass, and there were pro-Ukrainian rallies in Donetsk and Luhansk. And most of those people who were at pro-Russian rallies went out for money. My grandmother told how her neighbor called her to the main square of the city with the words "Let's beat the windows in the shops. They give 200 hryvnias there." My grandmother tried to make her understand, but to no avail. And then such people sit there and complain that Ukraine fired at Donbas for 8 years. However no missiles have flown to the same Donetsk since 2015, while in Mariupol, for example, flew from time to time. Now it may seem that the locals do not want the return of Ukraine. But it should be understood that since 2014, about half of the population has left the controlled territory. But for some reason no one takes their opinion into account. But there are people there who finally understood where they came from and really admit their mistake. They may not be visible, because they will never openly admit it. But from the connections I have left there, it can be said that there are a lot of people dissatisfied with Russia. So, in short, there were pro-Russian people. There were more of them in Donbass than elsewhere. I can't say for sure, but in my opinion, there were about 25-30% of such people. And your last question - Is it about the whole Donbas? Of course no. Even in that region, if you travel to the villages, many people there speak Ukrainian. The whole emphasis was on regional centers.

[@mohammedabdul4832]

And people like you are the reason why the war has started. You couldn't leave us Russians alone with our language and culture and now we are coming for you. We survived your Ukrainization attempts and now we will see if you can survive the opposite. Freedom for the Rusyn, the Russians and the Hungarians.

[@capncake8837]

@@mohammedabdul4832People like you are why Ukrainians are now switching to Ukrainian more than before.

[@signe_stilett]

Some of the best history and politics coverage on my country in English that i have seen thus far. Thank you so much for spreading awareness about complexity of Ukrainian history and statehood

[@bethmarriott9292]

Thank you to all of the history KZbinrs - basically all the channels I watch - taking part in this ❤️ not very blessed in terms of money but donated what i can ❤️

[@realperson6957]

I bloody love your channel Hilbert. Thank you for the hard work. If you do any more language videos that would be excellent. This was extremely interesting.

[@PakBallandSami]

going to love this project man

[@HikmaHistory]

I always wondered about this! Great video Hilbert!

[@APJTA]

The suppression of local languages which are very closely related to the state language was a common motif across Europe. France suppressed Occitan and its dialects, with a policy which is now known as la Vergonha (the shame, or la vergogne in French). I speak French, I can't speak or understand Occitan, but I can read it and understand a text, so it's easy, but incorrect, to argue that it's a dialect of French.

[@APJTA]

@@dmitrykozhin6884 good question. Catalan, absolutely. I'm not sure about Italian. Italian has its own particularities.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@dmitrykozhin6884 To Catalan but not so much Italian.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@APJTA As I was watching the bit about the Tsarist state treating Ukrainian as merely a dialect of Russian I thought of the French example. Not so much of Occitan, but of the many langues d'oil besides French in the north and centre of France. It is easier to treat those as dialects of the same language as French because 1000 years ago they were. But that's not so true of Occitan. During the 19th century there was an official policy of replacing local languages with French to foster national unity.

[@SaturnineXTS]

Of course Occitan is not a dialect of French. Occitan is a langue d'oc, while French is a langue d'oil

[@camradrip3730]

When I was a student in Dnipro. I talked to my parents on the phone. And one day my friends remarked, "When you talk to your parents you immediately switch to Ukrainian." And I was like, "What the hell. I talk to them in Russian." I suspect that many of those who speak Russian will be very surprised when their Russian will be heard by the Russians.

[@ihorzakharchenko1485]

I come from Kharkiv and am Russian-speaking. Thank you for the video but from my experience I desagree with several statements made in this video. I wouldn't agree that many Russian - speaking Ukrainians don't speak Ukrainian as the second language. Every Ukrainian speaks both, I have never met a Ukrainian person in my life who couldn't speak any of them. I would say this is just the matter of habit and preference. I wouldn't say that Russian - speaking Ukrainians are somehow discriminated or badly poticized, everyone is free to speak and use any language he wants. I personally would like to switch from Russian to Ukrainian because I feel some repulsion towards Russia and everything connected to it since the annexation of Crimea. However, it is not easy since most of my relatives and friends start the conversation in Russian with me and it would be weird when I reply in Ukrainian. So far I just speak Russian to everyone who prefers Russian and Ukrainian to those who prefer Ukrainian. Gladly, the proportion is switching in the Ukrainian direction and I am happy about it.

[@notYaroslav]

Дякую за вашу позицію. Не зупиняйтесь, не бійтеся помилок і переходьте - українська російськомовних українців найкраща!)

[@mohammedabdul4832]

Then go away from Charkov to Lwov or some other Ukrainian land and leave my Russian city alone.

[@ihorzakharchenko1485]

@@mohammedabdul4832 Lol, Mohammed Abdul - pure Russian name😂 I was born in Kharkiv and don't tell me where to live

[@mohammedabdul4832]

@@ihorzakharchenko1485 Im gonna tell you a secret. You can choose a different name on KZbin it doesn't have to be your real name. I could change my name to Michael Jackson or Pedophile Bandera lol. And don't worry the Russian army with the Forces of the DNR, LNR and soon the Republic of Charkov will tell you were to live then.

[@ihorzakharchenko1485]

@@mohammedabdul4832 Haha, let's see. Russian troll

[@fredrikh9299]

Very informative, thanks!

[@Theoneuknow7]

Thanks for this video. I never knew about the history of the languages used in Ukraine and this helps me better understand what is going on.

[@alansmithee8831]

Hello Hilbert. Good to see the support with other channels. I kept thinking along the lines of the last comment about language, not wanting to mention the politics. It first reminded me of English v Celtic in Britain and Ireland, but the nearest language comparison in UK might better be English and Scots. I then thought of you and Dutch v Frisian. Lastly, from time in Valencia province, I was reminded of Spanish v Catalan / Valencian. Funny how that last comment seemed to catch up with my train of thought. Keep up the good work. I am sure my old Ukrainian neighbour that I previously commented about would be pleased with your efforts. I commented elsewhere that from maths and science I picked up the Greek alphabet, which helped me with words for Alexandrian and Napoleonic Russian wargames armies, from which I found I could sometimes read whole simple sentences in Russian from learning French and German at school. This video explained why I struggle with Ukrainian on other recent KZbin videos.

[@NiklasMJ]

good video as always but i do feel like there is a lack of mention of the Soviet relocation of Ukranian peoples. this did happen both while the Holodomer took place but also in various amounts after. A lot of ukranians where forcefully relocated to places in Russia especially in the smaller far eastern villages and in many cases to work camps aka the Gulag, in order to weaken the National identity and to stop the possible creation of seperatist movements. needless to say the unlucky people sent to the Gulag didn't last that long. This actually ended up having a huge negative effect as there were a huge lack of workers in the factories of the industrial heartland of ukrain which is ofcourse located in the eastern part and thus Russians were also forcefully relocated to these parts of Ukraine in order to rectify this deficit of workers. also the Holodomor that was caused by a lack of skilled farmers didn't happen just because of rapid industrialisation but also because of these relocations of 1000's upon 1000's of people which had an impact on the ''proffesionalism'' of the Ukranian grain producing farmers and it's work force.

[@MrTaxiRob]

Another commenter told me that some Ukrainians were exiled to the frontier with Japan in north Kuril islands

[@NiklasMJ]

@@MrTaxiRob yep that is amongst one of the many many places they where brought after the war which also shows quite clearly that this trend continued well into the 40's and early 50's. But yeah it's insane how thin they really spread the Ukranians putting 100s of thousands around the entire country and never in big enough groups that they could ever cause trouble or shine a light on this terrible treatment.

[@MrTaxiRob]

@@NiklasMJ and Ukraine wasn't the only republic that was treated that way. Despite occasional waves of liberalization, the overall project of the USSR supported Russian chauvinism. Even Stalin had to learn the language in order to lead the party and the politburo.

[@Sir_Pancho]

@@MrTaxiRob In the 1920s - 1930s, Ukrainization was carried out. Of the approximately 21,000 schools, more than 18,000 were Ukrainian. Without knowledge of the Ukrainian language, it was impossible to get a qualified job. Also, 2/3 of the periodicals were in Ukrainian. Such a policy was actively pursued by the Bolsheviks in the territories of the Kuban, Voronezh, Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions. I am far from a supporter of the Bolsheviks, but those who claim about the "genocide" of Ukrainians in Soviet times say bullshit. In many ways, they contributed to the expansion of the so-called Ukrainian identity.

[@MrTaxiRob]

@@Sir_Pancho everyone knows the pendulum of Ukrainian identity recognition swung back and forth during the Soviet period, you can't point to a couple programs in a short period of time and say the job is done. And regardless of which way it was swinging at any given time, the ethnic Russians dominated the party and the Supreme Soviet, and settled in the autonomous and union republics that had historically non-Russian ethnic majorities. Many of them are still there, and that legacy of colonization is one of Putin's bogus justifications for the war.

[@EuroMaidanWasAnInsurrection]

I really appreciate all the historical knowledge from all of these KZbin channels.

[@Mypromiselive]

Jeez, you guys got some real hitters on Project Ukraine eh? I'm excited

[@Stychinsky]

For me, like most other level-headed Russians, a lot of whom have friends or relatives in Ukraine, Putin's war came as a shock. For people of Ukraine and Russia this will most likely become the biggest tragedy of the 21st century.

[@Freawulf]

That man and his ideopolitical mentors are to blame for that hideous rift between two related peoples... It's sad and insane, really... :(

[@mr.2083]

Then I can only urge you to not condone in silence and remember actions have consequences, doing nothing counts as one too. You have a voice, use it to change what your government is doing.

[@mr.2083]

@@gundissalinus Nice try with the strawman argument. Did I ever say the individual citizens have blood on their hands as you try to proclaim I did with your brother strawman argument? NO. If you still think so, please quote the part where I did. But only my words, not the ones you made up, not the ones you pretend I said. See, you're just putting words in my mouth that I've never said and making illogical leaps I've never made. You yourself are propping up a logic and arguments I never said or even thought but you are pretending I did. That's despicable and you should feel ashamed for that. I'm going to copy paste what I said. This time actually read what I said and only what I said. No putting your words in my mouth, no pretending I said things I didn't. "Then I can only urge you to not condone in silence and remember actions have consequences, doing nothing counts as one too. You have a voice, use it to change what your government is doing." So what part do you disagree with? That civilians shouldn't let their governments do everything that government likes? Or are you for dictatorships and governments without responsibility? Should citizens blindly follow their government according to you? Are you against civilians standing up against misdeeds and crimes of their government? Or are your supportive of the whatever evils your government might inflict on others?

[@mr.2083]

​@@gundissalinus And there you go again, putting words in my mouth I've never said and just making blind assumptions and then pretend those are things I've said. How you've gotten your rant from "Then I can only urge you to not condone in silence and remember actions have consequences, doing nothing counts as one too. You have a voice, use it to change what your government is doing." one can only guess, but I've said none of the things you claim I did. I've never once judged the russian civilians nor have I held them accountable. Nothing of the sorts is in those two sentences I've said. It is but another strawman argument you've conjured up. All I've said is that they have the power to bring about change (which as you've agreed in your comment is factually correct) and that that is what I urge them to do, nothing more than that, nothing less than that. There's no finger pointing, there's no blaming them, nothing of the sorts, yet you try and put words and actions like that in my mouth by way of strawmanning. Secondly I've pointed out the fact that all actions have consequences even doing nothing. That is nothing but an objective fact, nothing more, nothing less, there's no ethics attached to the statement, no morality, no judgement. Thirdly I've made a very clear distiction between civilians and the government in my statement as my last sentence shows. Something you time again and again and again pretend I haven't done despite it being there in black and white for all to read. The only things you are arguing are arguments and stances you yourself have constructed and are trying to put in anothers mouth so you can rant to them about how bad the arguments and stances you yourself constructed and put in their mouths are. Not once have you argued anything I have actually said, you've only argued things you pretend I've said, imaginary stuff you've made up yourself. *You're having an imaginary argument with yourself, nothing more than that.* So unless you have something to say that is actually about what I wrote in those 2 sentences (without putting words in my mouth and without making up stawman arguments), you can stick whatever you want to write in a place the sun doesn't shine.

[@Stychinsky]

@icky Vicky Indeed. Therefore its naive to assume Russian people world agree to make any concessions. Zelensky will have to swallow his pride one day, the only question is how many more peaceful civilians his troops will massacre for the crime of existing and how many more men will be forced to die for his delusions of grandeur.

[@LeeTheKnight]

I work with many ethnic Russians that are from Lithuania & Latvia but are hard-core Russian state supporters & very pro Russia in every opinion. I can't even navigate a conversation on this subject. In their eyes Russians inside & outside of Russia can do no wrong. I can't even imagine what life must have been like in the Soviet Union for non-Russians.

[@leechlord8234]

Yeah how dare they side with their country

[@LeeTheKnight]

@@leechlord8234 They are not from Russia. None of them have ever been to Russia. They are from the countries they were born in. Like I said Lithuania & Latvia.

[@leechlord8234]

@@LeeTheKnight yeah but they clearly see themselves as russian

[@LeeTheKnight]

@@leechlord8234 And many Americans see themselves as Irish. But they arent. It is very unfortunate.

[@leechlord8234]

@@LeeTheKnight why aren’t they? You can be Irish and American at the same time

[@Artur_M.]

Great video! Today I've listened to a fascinating podcast explaining in-depth the similar situation in Belarus: Talk Eastern Europe. The Story of Belarus. Episode 5: Discovery of Belarusian culture and language.

[@MrRof90]

thank you guys!!!

[@vladzioadenauer943]

I've heard lots of times in this video that Russian is like more prioritized, because everyone understands it. But in fact Ukrainian is also understandable for every person in Ukraine, who ended at least 4 classes of school since 1991. It was said there are around 41% of Ukrainian speakers, and >50% of Russian speakers, but in fact numbers are around 60% to 40% in favor of Ukrainian. Situation was as described probably decades ago, now we have completely new generation of people who grew up in independent Ukraine and spoke Ukrainian most of the time that it became their main language to use.

[@poshemuuu]

В прошлом году в Петербурге из 30 работников нашего склада было четверо украинцев. Они все говорили по-русски, могли говорить по-украински и могли друг с другом говорить по-украински по приколу (возраст 25-35 лет).

[@SaucisseVaillante]

Threw me for a loop to hear Devin at the start of the video

[@svenzimmermann]

5:40 I'm glad you mentioned Kashubian and Silesian when you mention the Slavic languages.

[@intel386DX]

Fantastic video! Cna you make a one for Belarus as well? I guess that the situation is similer like in Ukraine.

[@paragorn206]

Would you consider making a video on why there are so many whom speak Russian in the Baltic states, or why there are so few Ingrian speakers in Ingria? It's history that deserves to be remembered, and I think it's relevant in the current situation in which protecting a language minority is being used as a pretext for invading another country.

[@ravelgon]

I do not know English well, but from what I could understand, I want to note that this video is one of the many English-language ones where the causes of the conflict are correctly explained. A speedy peace for our countries and the world!

[@cmolodiets]

He didn't claim to explain the causes of the conflict. I don't think a state like Russia which is controlled by one person would start a war because of a language. Putin has its own reasons

[@_masssk_]

After USSR a lot of people in Ukraine continue watch russian TV, read russian books and feel like the center still is in Moscow. People celebrated New Year (that is the most popular holidays, because commies got rid of Christmas) 2 times - first by Moscow, then by Kyiv. There was no problem for everyone. There is even an idea that we can be Ukrainians and speak 2 languages. The very common situation is when 2 friends talk to each other using different language: Ukrainian and Russian. And there was no problem at all. After this war began many russian-speakers switched to Ukrainian, just because it distinguishes you from russians. Now I started to speak more Ukrainian - with coworkers, with friends. Many famous people switched to Ukrainian too.

[@danilkorovin6012]

гудлак свичерам на мову ,даже не знаю почему когда американцы освобождались не перестали на английском говорить

[@camradrip3730]

Да, Путин сделал для украинизации украины больше чем все националисты вместе взятые.

[@intel386DX]

But some people in Ukraine do not know Ukrainian, only Russian. Bay the way the reason for what you are switching to the Ukrainian is very stupid ! By this logic then why you don't stop speaking English ? You know USA destroyed many countries!

[@Gray_ninja]

Didn't watch. Because of Russification. While in time of Empire Russification didn't work well, the soviet Russification was very efficient. My grand-grand mother spoke Ukrainian. My grandpa, my father and i speak Russian (I'm trying to forget this language).

[@barrrakudam]

The amount russification under the soviet union did is always under represented. Ukrainian in areas like kuban dissappeared entirely

[@comelfon]

Молодець, горжусь тобою

[@mohammedabdul4832]

@@barrrakudam Ukrainians didn't live in the Kuban. Kuban Cossacks did and we spoke Balachka a language that is neither Russian nor Ukrainian.

[@user-bt2yu9nx1y]

@@mohammedabdul4832 you definitely do not understand what "balachka" means dude

[@mohammedabdul4832]

@@user-bt2yu9nx1y I understand what Balachka means and I understand that it is a seperate language. An academic case was made that proved my point and everyone who speaks this language agrees to my point.

[@itsKarlDesigns]

I mean thats a great video and I agree with most. However some of these issues are just understood differently in the west vs here in the east, nations and people that share the same kind of history of Russian oppression and imperialism as Ukraine I think understand it better. Language is politicized, but its done so by Russian side with the aims to further Russian foreign influence. The language part is an issue because Russia oppressed the people it conquered and russified these lands. Its not just in Ukraine where it would even be slightly understandable, but EVERYWHERE that faced this russification. We have the same kind of Russian minority from USSR ocupation, even 3rd generations who are supposedly fully "local", born here, lived in EU and the same freedoms... yet a lot of them, majority even, absolutely refuse to learn the native language, the official language of the country they live in and were born to. Perhaps again it wouldnt be a problem elsewhere in the west, besides economic and social issues, but its also an actual security concern for us here. These people live in Russian media bubble, that has been clearly proven to spread hostile false informtion and propaganda, aiming to excert its influence here and destabilize west. Lot of the ethnic Russians or even Russian immigrants here that come to our capital for better pay in mostly IT sector, learn English. They dont oppose to learning another language if it is made appealing enough and means economic benefits. We keep making compromises to allow these ethnic Russians here to get education in Russian, to have all necessary documentation or government communication translated, to also have access to most of Russian media(has now obviously been started to ban lot of it). They could go their whole lives and never learn our language, then still feel like we are the toxic and hostile ones, tryin to "discriminate" them and all that. Its been in the Russian propaganda annually that us in the Baltics, Poland, Romania, Ukrainia etc keep attacking Russian language or its people. Its the most basic form of their victimization propaganda, where the portray Putin as the only hero willing to come to their aid. Theres literally people living here, on our welfare, actively supporting the war in Ukraine AND also making public comments about hoping Putin comes here next. Its not majority of Russias here fortunatel, bt still... Its scary.. We understand this at least. We understand Ukraine as they have these very same issues. Somehow this gets lost in the translation or just out of ignorance and comfort of not having to have gone through this bs, lot of the western world seems to not fully grasp this. They can see Russia is the bad guy, again.. but they still try rationalize and explain these "complex" issues. When in reality most of it comes down to just general Russian mentality or the "russki mir" mindset, more simply just Russian imperialism. Their people are made to believe they are greater than us, that we owe them, that we deserve to be ruled over by them and "led" to become russified again. That the people who were "stranded" here by collapse of their last empire, will be liberated and become the ruling class. That somehow Russia will become prosperous and will share this wealth eith their people once they are big enough again.

[@LLlap]

Great comment. Fully Agree. I suggest you edit in some paragraphs so it`s easier to read.

[@unilajamuha91]

Except in Ukraine it's not even a question if they want to learn a new language or not, they know Ukrainian already, they just don't like it

[@extreme_vegoon]

@@unilajamuha91 Yes, they don't like it because they consume russian media, russian music, russian movies, russian youtube, etc, etc. Before war, I was in russian bubble, as well as my family, friends, classmates... everyone. I didn't think that I should know Ukrainian until the war started. I regret not learning it well enough because I thought it didn't hold any future and it was just useless, as, I repeat once again, I was in russian bubble. So it wasn't a choice to speak russian or to consume everything russian. We weren't given a choice, and now more and more Ukrainians are waking up and rejecting everything they got used to.

[@mikaelvalter-lithander1247]

About the media, aren't there any Russian-language media channels from the own country? E.g. public broadcast in Russian or at least channels independent from Russia?

[@rustictango6933]

@@mikaelvalter-lithander1247 tv and social life in general is overwhelmingly done in Ukrainian, this is a result of wider societal push away from anything russian that occurred due to Russian invasion in 2014

[@alexeysaphonov232]

A very important point for the people who speaks just one language (e.g. English or French) or where there are many languages in the country but they are regional (like in Switzerland or Belgium). People who speak Russian in the Ukraine speak also Ukraine language or at least can use it with no problem (same in Belarus). So, the only state language isn't any sort of discriminaton it is not excluding predomenantly Russian speakers from any place. On the other hand the russification of these countries (e.g. in Belarus there were only few colleges and handfull specializatons in the university of culture where you can use Belarus language now, this process started after the WW2, before there were Up to 90 % of education in Belarus, now there are many private Initiatives but not a single from the state, which is ruled by Russian co-laborant and usurper Lukaschenko) is very harmful for these countries, they don't have other countries to support their languages and culture (as Russia for Russian language). So the language topic is just yet another cover up for the russian agression as well as making ukraine (and Belarus) freedomfighters equal to Nazis (which is also completely wrong).

[@harlemraider3347]

Why use the French as an example of monolinguals? The vast majority of French people speak either Spanish or Italian (or Portuguese) as a second language (since it’s so easy to learn as they’re all Latin/Romance languages).

[@alexeysaphonov232]

@@harlemraider3347 the fact that some people in French have learned some different languages well doesn't mean that French people in general could be adresses in any other language than French. Examples of the thing I am considering as many languages are spoken in the country could be: 1. In the Netherlands (also Dänemark) you can start conversation in English with a very high probability of success. 2. In Nordic countries you can successfully start conversation on any of Nordic languages and get an answer on any (maybe other) Nordic language. 3. In the Ukraine you can use Ukraine, Russian sometimes Polish and receiver responses on some of them or on a mix. In France if I come somewhere and start conversation in Italian or Spanish (nothing to say about English) there is a high probability to fail miserably. In Germany, which is also quite monolingual (forgetting of reach regional dialects) you can try to speak türkisch in Dönner or Italiansch in an italian running restaurant but randomly on the street you cannot.

[@HistoryandHeadlines]

I like questions in titles!

[@graved1gger]

It was not only about famine in 1930s. It was about assimilating by shuffling the population around and hence the language. A lot of people deported (and not only to Siberia) which never were able to return but the land still needs the people, so a lot of Russians were transferred to 'vacant' lands in Ukraine to replace Ukrainians. This is brutal but in fact efficient way of assimilation - deport part of the population, replace by your own, put "right" people in governing position. And now you can claim that russian speakers are everywhere, what a 'surprise'... And Russians are trying to repeat this right now, there are a lot of cases already, when they create a humanitarian catastrophe and allow evacuations only to russia. Furthermore, process never paused, during later Soviet times, after graduating from universities people got assigned to work in regions that aren't native to them. There were people from Japanese descent in Khmelnitskyi region of Ukraine, two houses away from my grandparents' house. How? The same people shuffling from former(and some still disputed) Japanese territories in the east. Brutal, yet effective way of assimilation which later allows to claim that the russian speakers are everywhere and 'need to be saved'.

[@oleksaderzybis9052]

While bringing their people to settle new cities, russian empire also deported a lot of Ukrainians out of occupied territories to other parts of an empire. Great examples are Zeleny Klyn, Zhovty Klyn and Siberia. :)

[@gnas1897]

These were Cossacks who colonised Siberia

[@oleksaderzybis9052]

Thanks, that's an incredibly detailed video! Still, I should mention that Crimean Khanate, just as the nation of Crimeans, are not descendants of Mongols, but of Kumans -- nomadic neighbors of Rus. :)

[@TheCynthiaRice]

Excellent video

[@AKolesya]

As a russian speaker in Ukraine I can assure that nobody have ever got discriminated because of their language. Also it's quite interesting that before 1930s in russian region of Cuban more than 40% of people considered themself ukrainian and spoke ukrainian. But thanks to red army everyone was supressed, killed or sent to Siberia. Also there were even 2 ukrainian states formed near Ural and near Vladyvostok by ukrainians.

[@elimalinsky7069]

I have a friend from Novosibirsk who told me that in his own experience about a third of all surnames in the city end in ko, chuk and yuk, which are common Ukrainian surname endings. I immediately thought about the massive deportations of Ukrainians to Siberia by Stalin and realized those people must be of Ukrainian descent.

[@AKolesya]

@@gundissalinus than Argentina is the same to Spain and the USA to the UK

[@AKolesya]

Let's bring back imperialism, really?

[@xijinping6738]

@@gundissalinus lmao freak

[@katerynaivzhenko6716]

@@gundissalinus Oh, do you need help? I have some good online resources, English-speaking though

[@Quickshifter123]

Spoke Russian as a Ukrainian all my life. 1 month since I switched to Ukrainian forever thanks to Putin. Needless to say there was never any discrimination based on the language. It’s funny Russia makes a ridiculous claim, everybody laughs, but they keep repeating it and years later you seriously have to debunk it. That’s how the whole “language problem” feels. Like, I’ll accuse you of having an alien under your bed, you laugh and call me crazy, but later people seriously ask you if that’s true and ask for proof that it’s not. Lol. Exactly the language situation.

[@perfectmazda3538]

I know what you mean, most of claims Putin made were laughable from Ukrainian point of view...

[@lordmike9384]

how do you feel about celebrating bandera day?

[@h0lynut]

So you stopped speaking your mother tongue because of you disapproving of what russia does or do you do it because of the stigma of the language? Either choice seems to hold discriminatory tendencies. I mean, this hold rift is because ukraine refused to grant russian being spoken on a municipal level in the east after they indeed allowed it. So, they reversed their granting of the language and therefore, this conflict is in large because of that.

[@perfectmazda3538]

@@h0lynut nope, it is not, it's because some nutjob from east got corrupted by putins money and decided to go full "independent"...

[@perfectmazda3538]

@@lordmike9384 the same as celebrating stalins day...

[@sergiykyivua]

The medieval history part of this video is clearly based on literature influenced by Russian mythology. This concept of "unpopulated wild fields" is entirely a Russian construct. Of course it was populated before Russian rule. It was... Let's just say that genocide and deportation is not a recent Russian invention. Take a look at this video, "All history of Ukraine in 10 minutes". English subtitles are available, jus enable them in settings kzbin.info/www/bejne/sH-phqSolsmsjJY

[@y.gromyk]

Thank you, that’s is the comment I was going to write.

[@tlev615]

Absolutly agree most of information looks like russian notes. And I doubt that our languages from the same Slavic category! Ukrainian language 70% similar with Polish, 84% with Belarus and 62% with russian. If not russian environment, oppression for the whole history of russian empire against it's neighbours we would have about 1% of russia speaking people because this languages are very different. Video definitely contains false information.

[@pasqualyagomompo3331]

Reukrainization of Ukraine is the best thing ! That's the way it should be !

[@fluffy6923]

I'm surprised you didn't mention 2019 language law pack that introduced huge limitations regarding freedom of speech and languages. Where business or individual persons in government positions could be fined for not using Ukrainian. Huge languages quotas for TV and Radio stations. Including for language of song lyrics that are played on radio. You can't publish book in Ukraine in non Ukrainian language if you don't print same amount of books in Ukrainian. etc. The list of limitations is quite huge. And is basically limiting the use of all other languages in all spheres of life excluding home/personal use. I'm a free speech loving russian-speaking Ukrainian living in Kyiv. And when Zelensky and his party won the election, I had hoped that those ridiculous anti free speech laws will be overturned. Cause Zelensky and his party is fairly liberal by Eastern Europe standards. But after Russian invasion I'm afraid it will get much worse for russian-speakers in Ukraine. There are already some warning signs. For example, ATMs of the biggest bank in Ukraine, no longer gives an option for Russian language menu.

[@sergiy7195]

Guess what - I am also from Kyiv and I am native Russian speaker. And I find that laws protecting our official state language are absolutely necessary especially when our neighbour managed to weaponize the russian language. Quite literally - if there are russians-speaking people in a country Russia will invade to "protect" them. And also you are being dishonest: there's no law limiting freedom of speech. There's no law limiting book printing neither, only one that states that every printed paper and journal have to provide Ukrainian language copies.

[@fluffy6923]

@@sergiy7195 Being able to use any language you want only in personal life and religious ceremonies. Is a huge limit on free speech. Here's a part of law regarding book publishing and sale. Согласно закону "Об обеспечении функционирования украинского языка как государственного" количество напечатанных и распространенных книг должна быть не менее 50%. Об этом говорится в тексте закона. "Издатель, внесен в Государственный реестр издателей, изготовителей и распространителей издательской продукции, обязан выдавать государственным языком не менее 50 процентов всех выданных им на протяжении соответствующего календарного года названий книжных изданий", - говорится в статье 26 закона.

[@sergiy7195]

@@fluffy6923 Clearly you don't know what "free speech" means, you should remedy that before insinuating it's limited by this law. The law on book publishing also states that "Ця вимога не поширюється на видавничу продукцію, видану кримськотатарською мовою, іншими мовами корінних народів чи національних меншин України за рахунок коштів державного та/або місцевих бюджетів відповідно до закону щодо порядку реалізації прав корінних народів, національних меншин України." not that limiting after all, huh?

[@fluffy6923]

@@sergiy7195 Nope. Still very limiting. Considering that free speech is most important political issue for me and for the past 8 years I've been spending relatively large amount of time every week, following free speech related news and discussions in United States, Russia and Ukraine. I believe that I'm more informed on that topic, than the average person. I know for example some on the left side of political spectrum in the west could say "Hate speech is not a free speech". But that is just an excuse to limit free speech they don't like. And being able to use any language you want not just in your private life and religious ceremony is a part of free speech. The limits for the speech that should be discussed are located far, far from language that person is allowed to use.

[@mohammedabdul4832]

@@sergiy7195 And that's the reason why Russia is going in to protect the language. If you did something like Canada, Belgium, Norway or any other country with multiple languages Russia would have no reasons to attack and nobody would support them in case of an attack not even the supporters of the DNR and LNR. But you had to ruin it, by attacking the Russian language you gave Russia a reason to attack.

[@iKrivetko]

The definition of L1 and L2 can be fairly vague in this case since many, maybe even most Ukrainians acquired both during childhood because it is almost impossible to not have a Russian-speaking relative or two from Ukraine itself, from Russia, or from any other ex-Soviet state, and even then one would often be surrounded by Russian speakers and Russian media, so choosing either option in a poll is often a question of self-identification rather than actually a mark of being a L2 Russian speaker. The fact that the two languages are so close makes this veil even thinner.

[@_Lumiere_]

For many it probably feels like a "double" first language. Got a similar situation myself.

[@mykhailobalaker5458]

That is in fact the case. I was taught both russian and ukrainian from my childhood, with english a bit later on, and i consider both russian and ukrainian as L1

[@Coole000]

You are kinda confused about russian books in Ukraine... Government restricted publications on russian language, they should also publish the book in ukranian in same amount or more. Also there is restrictions about imports of russian literature. In other way - this started wave of translations. Publishers already started to translate books to Ukraine massively, instead of just buying russian translation licenses, or books in general. Also, i am russian speaker from the east of the country, you can ask me questions

[@Advise012]

Indeed, i have a couple of guys working remotely from Kharkiv and after 24.02 most of them started speaking ukrainian

[@robertperrella4194]

"history with hilbert" is the only you tube entity that looks at EVERY POINT OF VIEW either from the russian side or the ukranian side !!!!!!!!!!!!! this videio is accurate, well researched, informative and more importantly UNBIASED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am very impressed with all the videos from"HISTORY WITH HILBERT" !!!!!!

[@spg3331]

Russian is spoken in a lot of post soviet countries

[@unilajamuha91]

But only in Russia Belarus and Ukraine to such an extent

[@louisbeerreviews8964]

@@unilajamuha91 no

[@unilajamuha91]

@@louisbeerreviews8964 Where else then?

[@ellengiannakou3806]

@@unilajamuha91 Kazakhstan and Moldova

[@unilajamuha91]

@@ellengiannakou3806 Not nearly as much

[@Crashed131963]

Well Putin 95% speak English in Ireland but it does not mean it belongs to England.

[@stas7846]

Man, thank you for what you`re doing.. explaining to the world what`s actually going on is extremely important as well as ukrainization, beacause language is a weapon that helps us protect ourselves as practice shows..все буде Україна!

[@D.Aniel89]

As a citizen of Kharkiv, I can say, that there are a tiny few people who have problems with current Ukraine's language policy. Most of theese people had their best days at soviet union or even 90's. Sure, there are some of the youth that are "poorly behaved" or spoiled with money, who can show disrespect to Ukraine, but they are not liked here by people (like anywhere in the world). It's scary, that some Russians think we are forbidden to speak russian here, and we need to be "liberated"...

[@-_YouMayFind_-]

They want to liberate you because they think your are nazi's. Thats what Poetin said at least. Not that he ever tells the truth of course..

[@delacroixx]

I am Russian speaker from the south of Ukraine, I consider myself Ukrainian and I'd rather die than live under Putin's Russia. But I don't agree with the idea that Russian language belongs to Russia. Ukrainians have made such a huge influence on Russian language that if you take Ukrainian influence away Russian language would be unrecognizable. So many Russian language songs, films, books, blogs, games, etc were made by Ukrainians over centuries, so many great Ukrainian historical figures, politicians and simple folk spoke Russian that in my opinion it's insane to discard such a huge part of our culture just because Russian Federation happened to speak the same language. But of course with fucking Putin and this war it became difficult to have this position.

[@RomStepan]

Таке не може бути ти або україномовний українець або попугай.

[@voxpopuli5324]

@@RomStepan Україномовні! Перестаньте ображати російськомовних українців, які ціною ВЛАСНОГО ЖИТТЯ доказують, що вони не менше люблять Україну. Візьміть до уваги хоча б той факт, що русифікація українців тривала віками, з 1654 року аж до 1991 року. Я вже не кажу про голодомори, репресії тощо. Міг би, звичайно, вибрати більш емоційні слова, але не буду. Прошу вас, не ображайте, не можна, не треба.

[@delacroixx]

@@RomStepan сотні тисяч російськомовних українців, які захищають твою сраку від рашистів, теж попугаї?

[@alexpug5162]

Ты скорее сбежишь в Польшу чем умрёшь, сказочник, Русский юг бывшей украины скоро вернётся на родину, а тебе западенцу здесь не место.

[@voxpopuli5324]

@icky Vicky А ніхто й не каже какая разница. Вже понад 20 років виховую національну свідомість. Мова - питання делікатне, тут потрібен час, тут потрібні розумні, правильні, виважені рішення, а не звинувачення, а ще більше образи мільйонів українців, які виросли в російськомовному середовищі і вивчали українську в школі як іноземну. Більший патріот той, хто зі зброєю в руках захищає державу, мир і спокій народу, розмовляючи російською мовою, ніж, наприклад, той, хто одягнув вишиванку, кричить на кожному кроці слава Україні, а коли нависла реальна загроза, змився в Польщу, і вже з Польщі всім розказує, як треба любити Україну. І таких серед моїх знайомих чимало. Різниця між українцями і росіянами в цінностях. І одна з головних цінностей для українців - це відчуття свободи. Ще раз наголошую. Тут потрібен час. Суспільство, народ, як і людина, живе за своїми законами. У суспільстві інший часовий вимір. Суспільство, народ живе не роками, як людина, а десятиліттями, поколіннями. Тому для такого важливого і делікатного питання, як мова, потрібен час, ще десятки років, ще два покоління. Тому ще раз звертаюся до україномовних: не ображайте російськомовних патріотів. Ображаючи їх, ви чините народний злочин! Ви - народні злочинці! Звертаюся до російськомовних патріотів: якщо можете переходити на українську сьогодні, переходьте сьогодні, якщо зможете завтра, через тиждень, місяць рік, переходьте через тиждень, місяць рік. Якщо вам важко дається українська мова - не біда, тверезі, притомні україномовні українці вас і так зрозуміють. Головне - живіть, творіть, дійте з любов"ю до власної країни, до її багатостраждального народу! І все буде Україна!

[@sagapoetic8990]

I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in a former Soviet republic in Central Asia. The Soviets also mandated that Russian be the language everyone used. They also had these 'deportation schemes' that deported huge amounts of people in one 'republic' to others so that often the indigenous people could not remain the majority in their own countries. Among those deported: often language and cultural experts and teachers of those languages. Kazakhstan lost many of its language experts and northern Kazakhstanis are usually more comfortable using Russian over Kazakh because of this terrible legacy.

[@Sir_Pancho]

Maybe they speak it because the majority of the population of Northern Kazakhstan is Russian?!

[@Jameswebbtelescope7484]

I’m astonished that kings and generals colabing with this channel

[@floneticgetsam3120]

I am hesitant to watch, since this is a painful subject. I speak Russian, and so does my father, and so do his parents, and so do most people in Donetsk were we are originally from. We're locals, not occupants or colonisers, and so are most of the other Russian speakers in Ukraine. Some are Russified Ukrainian speakers, or descended from such, some are descended from Russian immigrants, but at what point does decolonisation pivot to become colonisation again? Putin's war is inexcusable. Screw Putin, I don't care about his "Russian world". He's done more to harm Russian-speakers outside of Russia than anyone else. But he doesn't own the language, or me. Ukrainian policy is aimed to assimilate Russian-speakers regardless of their will while hiding behind the facile claim that "this is a free country, no one is stopping you from speaking Russian". Why have the Russian schools been closed then, if not to take that choice away from future generations? It ain't right, no matter how they spin it. In the current state of things both Russia and Ukraine are now my enemies. Let's not even talk about the "People's Republic of Donetsk".

[@achatcueilleur5746]

You're not locals. Just recall the date your family was brought to Ukraine after WWII.

[@floneticgetsam3120]

@@achatcueilleur5746 We'll find the descendants of the people who used to live were you live now and give them your house, shall we. Populations migrate. If you go far enough, nobody's a native, or pure-blooded. After 3 generations you can't seriously sing this song about "the migrants". We're from where we were born. Anyway, my father's side of the family is originally from Gadiach and Dniepr going way, way back. My mum's from Rostov of Cossack origin - you do realise ethnicity is a murky thing and that nations cross borders, right? Her ancestors spoke something pretty similar to Ukrainian and didn't consider themselves Russian. You can't seriously think every one in the East is an immigrant from like the middle of Siberia.

[@sircoloniser5454]

Perhaps because Ukraine was owned by Russia for four hundred years

[@shinozaddy5939]

Short answer: The same reason spanish is spoken in the US, and french is spoken in canada.

[@Jobe-13]

Pretty fascinating history

[@PakBallandSami]

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest-fractionally more brave, one might say-about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant.” ― Christopher Hitchens

[@MrTaxiRob]

and Ukraine has a Jewish president today. Do you think that maybe Hungary would support him if he was Catholic?

[@lordofutub]

Crimean tatars were turkic, not mongol

[@memazov6601]

Well it's because of the Soviet union

[@MrFuckingKololo]

And the Russian Empire before that.

[@last_aid_kit]

And don’t forget about modern propaganda that still tries to picture Ukrainian language as “peasant”, or just a dialect of “intellectual” Russian.

[@xmaniac99]

@7:58 you mentioned dutch, but no anthem. You broke a tradition :-)

[@G0TIMAN]

27:00 "solidarity" yea, it's not like they were afraid or something xD

[@yunus_aros]

I see a future liberal language policy as a successful approach to further Ukrainian patriotism. Nationalism in a country as Ukraine could lead to irredentism. I am happy to learn that more and more Ukrainians - identify according to their citizenship rather than their preferred language or mother tongue. I think it is of outmost importance to nurture a positive and inclusive patriotism to embrace the future together rather than in an irredentist way. By the way in 1654 the Hetman who asked for Russian security guarantees against Polish aggression probably until too late did not realize that by doing so he gave up his and his people’s own independence.

[@MrTaxiRob]

I think Russian language will lose its popularity after this war. Good Times Bad Times channel did a good assessment of how the ongoing war has solidified the Ukrainian national identity.

[@moravetskyi]

I'm Ukrainian. Before Russian full-scale in 2022 invasion 75% using Ukrainian and 25% Russian. Mostly due to war started in 2014. Nowdays statistic amount of people that didn't want to have Russian language in Ukraine is 83%. A bunch of my friends form Kherson and East Ukraine switched on Ukrainian language only.

[@johnfleming7879]

there are also a very large population of Russians working on the base at Sevastapol, plus more near the base who use Russian as a first language. the base occupies a huge part of the land as well ( Crimea )

[@paulziolo9241]

I really must commend you for your excellent Slavic scholarship and your pro ounciation of Polish, Russian and Ukrainian. Bardzo dobrze! Отличная.рвбота! Молодцi!

[@delibery366]

In case you want to save some time: 1. All Ukraine's regions, except the western ones, were occupied by russia for 300+ years. So in these regions majority eventually started to speak russian. 2. The western part of Ukraine was occupied by russia for about 50 years, so people there still speak Ukrainian. 3. Under Russian occupation Ukrainian language was banned over 100 times. 4. If we take statistics from early 20th century, the vast majority of population in Ukraine spoke Ukrainian language, even in eastern part of Ukraine. 5. So bacically, Ukrainian language suffered from constant repression by russian occupation, especially in the USSR (if we look at statistics of language usage). 6. And just for general knowledge, Polish and Belarusian languages are more similar to Ukrainian than russian. (this info is not from the video)

[@baneofbanes]

Not just in eastern Ukraine but also in southwestern Russia.

[@user-rt3ui5df4c]

Traditionally, Ukrainian is included in the East Slavic language group, when it is much more similar to Polish and Czech than to Russian. With the Belarusian by about 85%. I think it would be wiser to separate Russian from this language group because both Ukrainian and Belarusian are more similar to Western languages. And old Ukrainian and old Belarusian do not look like old Russian at all

[@user-rt3ui5df4c]

Only after the harsh Soviet Russification did the Ukrainian language begin to be at least somewhat similar to Russian. The same Russification almost wiped out the Ukrainian lang. in the Kuban, Crimea, Donbas and southwest of Ukraine

[@konanpl8936]

True. As a Pole i can understand a lot of words from Ukrainian, but i totally dont understand russian. Russian sound some like mongolian for me.

[@FirstnameLastname-py3bc]

@@konanpl8936 But Russian sounds very similar to South Slavic Bitch Polish is strange to Slavs in general, they say it's more Germanic than Slavic

[@user-rt3ui5df4c]

@@konanpl8936 Dla nas tak samo bracie , witam ze Lwowa

[@user-rt3ui5df4c]

@@FirstnameLastname-py3bc Nothing like that, Russian is a mongolized variation of Old Slavonic in which a bunch of words from Tatar, Finnish, Estonian and French. So how it is East Slavic lang ? It is Mongol - Slavic

[@123vict5]

In south africa we have something called mengels lol. But yeah more and more people are combining English and afrikaans over here.

[@CivilWarWeekByWeek]

Linguistic history very cool

[@gerardotejada2531]

Countries are arbitrary, the landmass has existed for millenia but Ukraine is very new. Italy and Greece are actually very new. The Nationalist ideology has a few centuries and Europe has millenia of history. Nationalist want to belive there is a deep history of their States from before their fundation. Hitler spoke of a Third Reich, Putin has nostalgia for the Tzars and the Rus Empire.

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

This is a surprise, but a welcome one.

[@historywithhilbert146]

Merci mon general

[@freddytang2128]

I feel like the answer to this question is quote obvious. Same reason why former British colonies in Africa mostly speak English, and former French colonies in Africa mostly speak French today

[@federicodelcastillo1863]

I support every country that is been affected by war not just Ukraine, but first my country Mexico, then the others