Ukraine wants the Russian language back as major problems looming

Ukrainian politicians play up to the Russians in Ukraine when it is either elections or war. 

Russian language as Ukrainian heritage

Yulia Mendel, an official spokesperson for Ukrainian President Zelensky, said on Dom TV channel that the Ukrainian Russian language was part of the cultural diversity of Ukraine.

According to Mendel, it is high time for the Ukrainians to demonopolize the Russian language and announce the existence of the Ukrainian Russian language in Ukraine.

In early March, Arsen Avakov, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, announced that the Russian language largely belongs to Ukraine. He suggested organizing the broadcasting of Russian-language Ukrainian TV channels around the world. Avakov urged not to give away the Russian language to Russia and expressed confidence that the culture of the Russian language was part of the Ukrainian society.

"Therefore, disrespectful propagandists of the "Russian world", you do not have a monopoly for the Russian language! We will read our classics in it, write our books and sing our songs in it," he said. 

Nationalist Larisa Nitsa defamed Avakov for those remarks. 

Political scientist Yegor Kvasnyuk told Pravda.Ru that Kiev has gone too far with its "moronic" Ukrainization of Ukraine. The things that the Ukrainian authorities have done to their country sow doubt even in the hearts of Ukrainian patriots. 

Many outstanding Ukrainian writers from Odessa, such as Ilf and Petrov or Kataev, wrote their works in Russian, but now the Russian language in Ukraine is prohibited. 

Struggle for the electorate

According to Yegor Kvasnyuk, the Ukrainian authorities are back-pedalling on the Russian language not to lose their electorate. "With their actions, the nationalists incite the hatred in people, especially in southeastern Ukraine and in Kiev."

"Hatred entails popular disobedience, when people simply stop paying attention to the state and considers this state an occupier," Yegor Kvasnyuk told Pravda.Ru.

The political scientist reminded that the Ukrainian language "was originally invented in the city of St. Petersburg at Osnovanie magazine back in the century before last" and it was "completed by pseudo-historian Grushevsky in Lvov."

"Pseudo-historians from Ukraine and Canada pretend that Rus belongs to Ukraine. Therefore, the Russian language is not actually Russian, it does not belong to Russia, as they say. They even say the word 'russky' differently, alluding to grammar before Peter the Great's language reforms. They believe that Russia is an alien state that is trying to steal the 'russky' concept from Ukraine. If one takes them seriously, it just so happens that there are no Russians in Russia either," Yegor Kvasnyuk noted.

Consolidation of the Ukrainian population before the war

Another reason, for which the Ukrainian authorities want to change their minds on the Russian language is about the attempt to consolidate the Ukrainian society on the eve of the "war with Russia." The "lion's share" of people in the Ukrainian army speaks Russian. When the military feel pressure on language or religious issues, this may lead to severe problems. 

“Therefore, they already back off as they realise that they may have to attack the Donbass or the Crimea," concluded Yegor Kvasnyuk.

The initiative to outlaw the Russian language in Ukraine was one of the requirements that came from the West. They wanted to make Ukraine exist as anti-Russia.

"Since our Western partners do not understand what Ukraine is, where it came from - they are generally poorly educated people - they simply demand such things be done in the toughest possible way," Yegor Kvasnyuk told Pravda.Ru.

On July 16, 2019, the law "On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language", developed by the government of the fifth president of the country, Petro Poroshenko, came into force in Ukraine. According to the document, the Ukrainian language became mandatory for state and local authorities, educational institutions, hospitals and the service sector. However, Ukraine never started speaking Ukrainian.