Why language has taken centerstage in the Ukrainian war

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Along with the Russian war in Ukraine is the war on language.

The majority of Ukrainians are bilingual and can speak both languages — like Roman Chetverikov, who grew up in Kyiv.

Chetverikov said the message coming out of Russia is that Ukrainians were abusing Russian-speaking people — which he claims is mere propaganda.

“Ukraine didn’t start this war,” Chetverikov said.

Chetverikov said in his 52 years of life, he’s never had any issue with the Russian language and noted that learning Russian in school is mandatory.

Chetverikov also owns a toy business and said employees can speak and sign documents in any language.

“So in Ukraine, it’s a country with multicultural people,” Chetverikov said. “It’s Ukrainian speaking people. It’s Russian speaking people. So you can speak Russian everywhere. You can speak Ukrainian everywhere.”

SPECIAL SECTION: UKRAINIANS IN HAWAII

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that Russia and Ukraine are “one country” and has made it his goal to erase Ukrainian identity and culture.

That includes the Ukrainian language.

According to the latest Census, Ukrainian is the first language of about 68% of the country. About 30% of Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language.

Oleksandr Sheremet and Anna Baryshnykova are from Odesa, Ukraine — which, they said, is mostly a Russian-speaking city.

They believe one of the underlying factors behind the war is protection of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.

“A lot of people, a lot of our friends and also we are in our family, we speak Russian and we never had any discrimination of the language question in Odesa and in Ukraine,” Anna Baryshnykova said.

“And that’s why my husband, he would like to speak Russian to show and to prove that there is no any problems with that, with the language.”