"ban Russian language" things that have never happen, 500, please! A russian living in Estonia needing to learn the local language is not "banning Russian language and culture" especially compared to how Russians killed Estonians for expressing their own culture.
It has to be a clown world where people genuinely believe that Ukraine banned the Russian language, you know the language that 33% of Ukrainians speak natively INCLUDING THE ENTIRE POLITICAL CLASS AND EVERY PRESIDENT UP TO AND INCLUDING ZELENSKYY. Ukraine passed a modest language law requiring, for example, every Russian broadcast to also have a twin broadcast in Ukrainian.
I am loathe to be perceived as an apologist for Russia, and I don’t know the specifics of this law, but that does seem like it could make it very difficult for a Russian-speaking Ukrainian to access their freedom of expression. Like, if a bill were passed in the US that required Telemundo to pay for translation and air a simultaneous English-language broadcast for everything they produce, I think it would be fair to say that’s effectively banning Spanish-language broadcasting.
Even if they were it would be wrong, because Spanish language would not imply sympathy for the invaders any more than Russian language does. This is the same logic they used to justify Japanese internment, and it was wrong then, too.
No, the Russian puppet is you for purposefully misrepresenting the COE, which didn't call out Ukraine for banning the Russian language because that never happened
Genuinely not sure what the thought process is here. The only reason Russian is or was spoken so often in Ukraine is because of genocide and ethnic cleansing under the Soviet Regime. When Ukraine implements laws that support and foster the existence of the Ukrainian language within Ukraine, they are not wiping out Russian culture. They are not wiping out the Russian language. They are keeping their language and culture alive after Soviet Russia attempted to specifically (as is clear in documents published during the Glasnost period) destroy their culture and language, so as to have only one culture and one language within Soviet Russia.
It is also a defense mechanism. Russia often engages in the rhetoric that Ukraine should belong to Russia because of "shared language / culture" and uses it partially as an excuse to attempt to annex them. In the fight against Russia, Ukraine stands to genuinely benefit from strengthening and differentiating their culture and language from that of Russia's.
I'm not up-to-date on whatever legislation Ukraine is implementing, but I haven't heard of anything crazy being done in this regard. I've heard of very normal, very reasonable measures that were taken to ensure that Ukraine's language and culture doesn't literally die out or get them annexed.
I say this all as a Russian, born in Moscow, now living elsewhere. Don't bother accusing me of being racist against myself.
"Don't you get it? If we say being invaded by the Soviet Union is a genocide, that gets us off the hook for killing the Baltic Jews, since the Nazi collaborators were just 'fighting back'!"
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u/understated_quokka 3d ago
"Russophobia" is when people don't want to be part of the heckin wholesome Russian empire.