Is Putin a dictator? With Trump’s return to the White House, this question is once again at the centre of the debate. Other questions currently being asked include: “Who caused the war in Ukraine?” and “Who is to blame for the lack of a peace deal?”. Global experts on democracy agree that Putin is an autocratic leader who played a significant role in dismantling Russia’s nascent democratic institutions, replacing them with a system that bears an “all-too-close resemblance” to those of fascist leaders in the 1930s. To legitimise his controversial decisions, he has consistently positioned himself as a protector of Russian culture, values, and language. From this standpoint, it seemed like a natural progression for him to brand the Ukrainian government as a neo-Nazi institution, accusing it of oppressing—and later committing genocide against—the Russian minority and Russian-speaking population, primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Putin is a skilled leader with extensive experience in Russian intelligence. He understands which arguments are most persuasive to different audiences and how to make them believable. For the past two decades, he has successfully used propaganda to spread favorable rhetoric, control the Russian people, and manipulate foreign leaders to support his interests.
A strong argument is supported by evidence and/or logical reasoning. Accordingly, Putin’s accusations were based on facts. Sources indicate that the Ukrainian government has seen the widespread use of the Russian language in certain parts of Ukraine as problematic. Several laws were passed to restrict the use of Russian in public settings, but these changes applied to all minority languages. Nevertheless, speaking Russian was never outlawed or formally penalised by the government. These policies were intended to standardise Ukrainian usage across the state—an attempt to counter accusations of state illegitimacy from Russia and its allies while protecting all Ukrainian residents.
As Human Rights Watch has stated, “language is central to identity”. This makes these legislative measures highly contentious, despite the government’s non-malicious intentions.
Furthermore, a study conducted between September and October 2021 found that negative sentiments among Ukrainian speakers toward Russian-speaking residents were widespread among the Ukrainian population. The authors attributed this to the perception of Russia as an aggressor and a threat to Ukrainian independence. Of those surveyed, 23% reported hearing hate speech against Russian speakers in the past 12 months. It is important to note, however, that 17% also stated that they had heard similar sentiments directed at Ukrainian speakers from Russian-speaking individuals.
Yet, there is no evidence of aggression against the Russian or Russian-speaking minority at the hands of Ukrainian state forces or Ukrainian-speaking citizens. Putin’s claim that Ukraine’s language policies are comparable to Nazi oppression is therefore unfounded, despite being based on a real, ongoing issue.
There is substantial evidence, however, that since February 24, 2022—the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine—at least 12,654 civilians have been killed and over 29,392 injured as a result of illegal warfare tactics. By the end of 2024, the most affected regions were Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk (East); Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia (Southeast); Kyiv (the capital); and Chernihiv (North). According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, most of these areas had some of the highest concentrations of Russian-speaking populations. This suggests that, unlike Ukrainian forces, Russian forces are targeting regions populated by Russian and Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine, destroying infrastructure with disregard for, or the intent to cause, the loss of civilian lives.
However, returning to the point made by the aforementioned study: “Ukrainians can be hostile towards people speaking Russian because Russia is perceived as an aggressor by most Ukrainians.” These conclusions were made before the exacerbation of the 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict, but when Russia had already begun moving military personnel to the Ukrainian borders. It appears that no follow-up study has been published to reflect on how the current situation influences the frequency of hate speech experiences of the Russian-speaking refugees who were forced to flee their destroyed cities. However, given the circumstances, some readers of that article might be inclined to arrive at a similar assumption, that the situation might have gotten worse, and requires scholarly attention as soon as possible. This is particularly significant as by December 2024, almost half of all those forcibly displaced originated from the majority Russian-speaking regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk.
It is often easy for people in Western Europe to merely observe the issues and conflicts faced by their post-communist and post-Soviet counterparts in the East. But we should all ask ourselves: Would I be able to shake the belief that if it weren’t for the Russian and Russian-speaking minority, the war wouldn’t have happened? Would I be able to, despite the differences, remain firm in the belief that we are in this together—that this is our fight, and only together can we win it?
By Zuzanna Tabakiernik
April 8, 2025
