this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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me_irl
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I mean, technically sort of, yeah. Continued russian aggression and interference most definitely contributed to the rise of political extremism. Which just so happened to give the Kreml plenty of reason for further interference, such as the direct deployment of "volunteers" into the civil war.
Russia would have had the opportunity to support Russian communities in Ukraine peacefully, for example with beneficial trade agreements and cultural exchange programs. Unfortunately for these Russian communities, all the Kreml knows are diplomatic pressure and coercion and force of arms. As such, Russian culture was regarded as a mark of oppresion and the communities became targets of both Russian and Ukrainian nationalists - either as enemies, or potential agents.
Note: This is simply my, obviously non-comprehensive, personal understanding of the situation. Feel free to elaborate.
Before the full scale invasion, more than half of Kyiv residents preferred speaking russian over Ukrainian in day to day communication, myself included. If the invasion never happened, I'd still be speaking russian. They literally did it to themselves.
Interesting. I have a genuine question I hope you don't mind me asking. How come you prefer Russian over Ukrainian?
Right now I've switched to Ukrainian in almost all cases, so, right now, I don't. But, to answer your question about my past preference, it was mostly peer pressure. Most of my friends and large part of my relatives were speaking either russian or surzhyk (a sort of Ukrainian-russian creole, that varies depending on the region).