Total Recall: Russian attempts to erase the Ukrainian language

Language is the source code of identity, running the commands of thought and expression. By now, we’ve seen how Russia was rewriting history and corrupting culture – but the attack on Ukrainian language is aimed to erase the source code itself. Ukrainian, however, persists, booting again and again, refusing the simulation imposed from outside, carrying the full trace of the history and culture that preceded it.

In contemporary Russian ideology, the narrative of “protecting Russian speakers” occupies a central role. In 2014, claims that Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine faced discrimination were used to justify military and political intervention. In 2022, similar rhetoric accompanied the full-scale invasion. The updated “Strategy for Policy on Russian State Nationalities up to 2036” justifies the aggressive occupation as historic reunification of the Russian-speaking population. Combined with a manipulative narrative of most Ukrainians being Russian-speaking, this strategy opens doors for further Russian intervention.

The notion that dismantling the Ukrainian language is essential to controlling Ukraine predates Vladimir Putin. For centuries, Russian authorities — imperial, Soviet, and now contemporary — have treated the language as a political variable rather than a cultural inheritance. Across four hundred years, Ukrainian has been constrained through circulars, decrees, ecclesiastical condemnations, and statutory bans designed to limit its use in education, publishing, administration, and public life.

Since the Soviet period, Russian has been elevated to the status of a supra-national language — the primary medium of administration, science, lately promoted as the tool of “interethnic communication”. It carried institutional authority and upward mobility. Ukrainian, by contrast, was often confined to the private sphere and portrayed as provincial, suitable for folklore but not for power.

Efforts to weaken Ukrainian through legal mechanisms also surfaced domestically. In 2012, under President Viktor Yanukovych, parliament passed the Kivalov–Kolesnichenko language law, expanding the official use of Russian in several regions. Critics warned it eroded Ukrainian’s constitutional status as the sole state language. Mass protests in 2014 led to Yanukovych’s removal, reflecting wider resistance to alignment with Moscow and strengthening commitment to the European integration.

Occupied Crimea provides a concentrated example of linguistic policy under Russian control. Despite the Kremlin’s declaration of three official languages ​​on the peninsula – Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar – by the end of 2025 not a single Ukrainian school remained in Crimea. Under the guise of “improving the qualifications of teachers” and “improving educational programmes,” Russia has systematically attempted to Russify and militarise Ukrainian children in the temporarily occupied territories.

Although surveys show that more than 90% of Ukrainian teachers, parents, and students identify Ukrainian as their native language, Kremlin messaging continues to promote the narrative that Russian speakers face systematic oppression in Ukraine. The claim persists despite the absence of evidence supporting it. It is worth noting that the percentage of people identifying Ukrainian as their native language has been rising over time, partially caused by the Russian aggression. Instead of protecting, the Kremlin alienates those who have been speaking Russian.

The policies implemented in occupied territories – from educational restructuring to the suppression of Ukrainian public life – offer a clearer indication of intent. It becomes ominously clear just what future the Kremlin is plotting for the whole of Ukraine.

If history defines the past and culture embodies collective memory, language transmits both across generations. Efforts to control it therefore aim at something fundamental: the capacity of a society to describe itself in its own terms.