DEAR READER,

With a record-breaking turnout of 79.5% in Hungary’s election, Péter Magyar’s party has secured a two-thirds majority, strong enough to begin dismantling the system Viktor Orbán spent years building. He has also pledged to rebuild ties with the EU. We will be returning to Hungary in the coming weeks as the dust settles, but for now, it’s safe to say that this was a historic result.

Meanwhile, in this week’s expert opinion, Vladyslav Faraponov looks at how language in Ukraine has evolved from a cultural issue into a question of identity and national security.

And one more thing: are you curious who’s behind our illustrations? Check out our short video with illustrator Andrzej Zaręba, where he talks about his work and what inspires it.

Enjoy reading this week’s “brief”!

— Giorgi Beroshvili, Editor

I am a Ukrainian Jew who grew up in a Russian-speaking family. Russian was the language of my childhood, education, and everyday life. Yet today, my son is growing up in a fully Ukrainian-speaking environment, with Ukrainian as his first language.

This shift was not imposed. It was not the result of bans or repression. It was a consequence of Russian aggression and a conscious rethinking of Ukrainian identity. This is a key reason why claims that Ukraine has suppressed Russian-speaking citizens do not hold up. To understand this issue, one must move beyond political slogans and examine how language in Ukraine evolved from a cultural matter into a question of identity and national security.

From cultural diversity to political manipulation

Ukraine has never been a monolingual country. Upon gaining independence in 1991, it inherited a complex linguistic landscape shaped by centuries of imperial and Soviet rule. Millions of Ukrainians spoke Russian in everyday life while identifying fully as Ukrainian citizens.

From the very beginning, the Ukrainian state attempted to balance two goals: promoting Ukrainian as the state language while also protecting minority languages. The 1996 constitution enshrined this compromise by guaranteeing both the development of Ukrainian and the protection of Russian and other languages. However, this balance was fragile, and in practice skewed heavily towards the dominance of the Russian language.

For decades, Ukrainian passports were issued in both Ukrainian and Russian, and for many Ukrainian speakers, the state language remained marginalized in public life with Russian instead widely used in the media, business, and daily life across much of the country. For Russian speakers, any attempt to strengthen Ukrainian was often framed as exclusion.

As a result, language became not just a cultural issue, but a political one. However, it was not always the case. It was only when Russia began to lay claim to the so-called Russian-speaking South and East, Ukrainians began to realize that Moscow’s “protection” narrative was a pretext for undermining Ukrainian sovereignty.

Russia’s narrative: language as a tool of influence

For decades, the Kremlin promoted the narrative that Russian-speaking Ukrainians were oppressed and needed protection. This framing served a geopolitical function. By portraying Ukraine as divided along linguistic lines, Russia aimed to justify its continued influence and, eventually, intervention. After 2014, this narrative became central to Russia’s aggression. The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas were explicitly justified as efforts to defend Russian speakers. Yet, as many investigations have shown there was no evidence of systemic persecution of Russian-speaking Ukrainians – the protection argument was a political construct, not a reflection of reality.

The turning point: language becomes security

The most important shift in Ukraine’s language debate occurred after Russia’s aggression in 2014, and accelerated after the full-scale invasion in 2022. Following this, language in Ukraine gradually became securitized, as promoting and speaking Ukrainian began to be treated as an issue of national survival and a part of defending the state and its values rather than a policy preference. As one analysis conducted by the independent research foundation Eurac notes, the Ukrainian language became closely linked to territorial integrity and national security, with courts explicitly recognizing that threats to the language can be seen as threats to the state itself.

Russia weaponised this policy shift by framing the promotion of Ukrainian in school, media, and state communication as a “ban” on the Russian language. This linguistic narrative was combined with other campaigns, where Ukraine’s aspirations to join the European Union and the status of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea were portrayed as existential threats to Russian security. However, inside Ukraine, these narratives found little support outside of pro-Russian circles. The majority of the population did not view these measures as a prohibition of the Russian language. As the Eurac analysis specifically highlights, Ukraine remained a multilingual society where people continued to use Russian and other languages in both the private and public spheres. What had changed was not the existence of Russian in Ukrainian society, but the hierarchy of languages in public institutions.

“De-Russification from below”

One of the most overlooked aspects of Ukraine’s linguistic transformation is that much of it has occurred voluntarily to emphasize the country’s difference to Russia after Moscow’s military aggression. Many Ukrainians who previously spoke Russian have consciously switched to Ukrainian in daily life. This process has been described as a grassroots “de-Russification from below”.

This shift is not driven by fear of being punished for speaking Russian. It is driven by solidarity and resistance. For many Ukrainians, continuing to use Russian, a language now associated with the atrocities of the war, feels politically and morally uncomfortable. Switching to Ukrainian becomes a way of affirming belonging to a political community currently under attack.

Despite this, the narrative of “oppression” continues to appear in western political discourse. Statements suggesting that Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not identify with Ukraine reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the country. Ukrainian identity is civic, not linguistic. Russian-speaking Ukrainians have voted for pro-European policies, participated in protests, and fought in the armed forces. Language has never determined loyalty. The persistence of these narratives demonstrates how effective Russian information campaigns have been. By reducing the conflict to language, they obscure its true nature: a war against Ukrainian statehood.

Transformation, not suppression

For decades, Ukraine existed between two spheres – culturally tied to Russia but politically oriented towards Europe. This tension was embodied in language. Each wave of language policy, from compromise to conflict to Ukrainization, reflects an attempt to define what Ukraine is and where it belongs. Today, this process has accelerated. Promoting Ukrainian is not only about communication. It is about asserting a distinct national identity in the face of external denial.

There is no evidence to support claims that Ukraine suppresses Russian-speaking people. What exists instead is a post-imperial process of nation-building, shaped by war and external aggression. Language policy in Ukraine is not about banning Russian, but about strengthening Ukrainian as a symbol and instrument of sovereignty.

My own family’s story mirrors this transformation. Yet today, the choice of language carries a different meaning. The shift to Ukrainian in my family is not imposed, it is deliberate. It reflects a broader societal change in how Ukrainians perceive themselves and their future.

For my son, Ukrainian will not be a political decision. It will be natural. And that is perhaps the clearest evidence that what is happening in Ukraine is not suppression, but transformation.

— Vladyslav Faraponov, Chief editor of the Gaze media outlet, President of the Kyiv-based Institute of American Studies

Think Visegrad — Fellowship Programme 2026 — A short-term fellowship for researchers and professionals from outside the Visegrad countries to conduct policy-relevant research at leading think tanks in Central Europe. Fellows spend 6–8 weeks in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, or Slovakia, developing a project in political science, international relations, or economics, and contributing to regional policy debates.

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