24/01/2022
In 2014 Vladimir Putin tried to justify his occupation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by saying that well they all speak Russian there. But just because many Ukrainians speak Russian, it doesn't mean they want to be governed by Moscow.
A parallel example: The British for centuries sought to suppress the Irish language, just as both imperial and Soviet Moscow did to the Ukrainian language. Today all Irish people speak English but they are still Irish not British.
And unlike the Irish, the Ukrainians have kept their language fully alive as the daily-use language of millions of people, and those numbers are increasing.
Excerpt from Real Ukraine podcast. You can listen to the full episode, 'Putin is Rattling Nerves of Americans and Europeans, Not Ukrainians', which I co-host with my friend, Ukrainian Konstantyn Chyzhyk, via these links:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2KbXYpWM1OleWXkMS7uCbY?si=bdcc8af08959478c
YouTube: https://youtu.be/1AbJZAjyLtk
Lviv Now: https://tvoemisto.tv/en/news/real_voices_from_ukraine_putin_is_rattling_nerves_of_americans_and_europeans_not_ukrainians_podcast_127022.htmlhttps://tvoemisto.tv/en/news/real_voices_from_ukraine_putin_is_rattling_nerves_of_americans_and_europeans_not_ukrainians_podcast_127022.html