“You can absolutely be Russian-speaking and Ukrainian”

If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks Ukrainian, he was however born in a Russian-speaking city, and learned the Ukrainian language only later. Is it important that he speaks this language? “It’s important, it’s presidential destiny that made him change from the moment he took over as head of the country. He speaks the language of the country“, Explain Iryna Dmytryshyn, historian specializing in Ukraine and lecturer at INALCO present on the 23h set of Franceinfo, Saturday April 16, who specifies that “it didn’t start with the war“.

“Ukraine is building a nation-state where one can be Ukrainian regardless of religious, ethnic and linguistic affiliation. There is no divide. So [la langue] is important[e], but it is not an exclusive tag. It is possible to be Russian-speaking and to be Ukrainian. By the way, the eastern regions of Ukraine have perfectly proven this for more than a month“, indicates the historian, who adds that “maybe that’s what Putin was counting on, and that’s what he missed“. According to Iryna Dmytryshyn, “this is not because the cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol and the others were Russian-speaking that they expected the Russians to come to liberate them.”