“Millions of Russian people, Russian-speaking citizens live and will live in Ukraine, and Russia will always defend their interests with political, diplomatic and legal means,” announced Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 18 in his Kremlin address making his case for annexing Crimea.  

The rights of Russians in Ukraine are not being violated. It is simply impossible to persecute somebody based on language or
ethnicity when both characteristic are fluid, self-defined and over-represented
as they happen to be in modern Ukraine.

Unlike Ukrainian communities in the United States, or many ethnic
diaspora around the world, Russians in Ukraine don’t live in clusters and don’t
differ in their customs from the rest of the population

There are no Russian
villages or Russian quarters in Ukrainian cities, and Russians don’t tend to set
up language schools for their children, wear national Russian ethnic dress on
holidays, preserve their traditions and go to their churches. 

There is no all-Ukrainian organization for Russians simply because it is unclear who
exactly it would represent. 

While you can find an ethic Ukrainian who was raised
with Ukrainian customs and culture, speaks only the Ukrainian language and hates
Moscow and an ethnic Russian who speaks exclusively Russian and despises
everything Ukrainian, most of the population falls in between with any
combination of language usage, ethnicity and political allegiances.

According to the latest census (http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/), 77.8 percent of the population of Ukraine are ethnic Ukrainians, 17 percent are Russians. At the
same time, 67.5 percent consider their native language Ukrainian and 29.6 percent Russian.

The next census is planned for the year 2016, but some
changes to the ethnic and language landscape of Ukrainian population can be
seen already. The percentage of those who consider Ukrainian their native
language slightly fallen to 63 percent and Russian slightly risen (35 percent), according to
the poll completed by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in
September 2013 (http://obozrevatel.com/interview/hmelko-63-vidsotki-vvazhayut-ridnoyu-movoyu-ukrainsku.htm).   

It can be explained both by the margin of error and by an increased
number of people who are fluent in both languages. An earlier survey by
Razumkov Center (2007) found that bilingual people in Ukraine who speak equally
well Russian and Ukrainian constitutes 21.5% of those polled and this number is
even higher in the East and South of Ukraine. (http://ukrainianweek.com/Society/47497).

In Ukraine, for many people deciding whether they are
Russian or Ukrainian speakers is a matter of choice, not destiny. Many speak
both languages daily in different settings, for example, Russian at home and
Ukrainian at school or place of work.  

Surprisingly, the same can be said about ethnicity.
Ukrainian passports don`t require selecting nationality. Russians and
Ukrainians are not physically different. They are all Christians. Last name can
suggest nationality but not necessarily. Centuries of assimilation of Ukrainian
population, first by the Russian empire and then by the Soviet Union contributed
to the fact that many Ukrainian last names were changed so that they would look
more Russian. For example, Shulgin can be a Russian last name (ends with -in)
but also Ukrainian because it originated from the word “shulga,” which means
left-handed in Ukrainian language. One can find a few Russian last names in the
current Ukrainian government  and few
Ukrainian ones on the US sanctions list.

Neither ethnicity nor language determines political
allegiance.

A joint poll by the Democratic Initiatives and Kyi of Euromaidan most
active participants (those who lived at the camp) determined that as of February
3, 2014, 59% of them were Ukrainian-speaking, 16 % – Russian-speaking and 24% –
bilingual (http://www.dif.org.ua/ua/events/vid-ma-zminilosj.htm). Many Russian-speaking
residents of Kyiv were providing Euromaidan with steady financial, material,
labor and moral support.

My own family, which moved from Russia to Kyiv, Ukraine, in
1993, is a prime example. My mother is half-Russian and half-Tatar, speaks
Russian, can read, write and understands Ukrainian and my father is a bilingual
ethnic Ukrainian. Both of them politically define themselves as pro-European,
Ukrainian patriots who actively supported and participated in Euromaidan.

Personally, I had to make a decision about my national
identity at the age of 16, shortly after collapse of the Soviet Union. At that
time my family lived in Obnink, Kaluzhska oblast in Russia, and I went to
obtain my first passport. Though I indicated my nationality as “Ukrainian,” the
clerk at the Passport Bureau wrote “Russian,” explaining that it would make my
life easier. I had to insist.  

I decided to be Ukrainian, though I didn`t speak Ukrainian,
wasn’t exposed to Ukrainian customs or culture, and spent, maybe two months
total in the Central Ukraine during summer vacations at my great grandmother
house. All that came later when I left the prestigious Russian State Humanitarian
University after one year of studies and relocated to Kyiv.

When I was growing up in the Russian Republic of the Soviet
Union, I have never heard anybody speaking Ukrainian or recall seeing a book or
periodicals in Ukrainian language in a store. Ukrainian culture in Russia was
represented by early works of Nikolai Gogol, a couple of poems of Taras Shevchenko,
male dance Gopak and some sanitized elements of Ukrainian national dress.  At the same time, in the years following
collapse of the Soviet Union, people in Russia where obsessively and very
emotionally discussing Ukrainian independence, which made most of them deeply
unhappy.

To my great surprise, after I moved to Ukraine I saw that
while Russian language and Russian culture were present everywhere, nobody was
talking excessively about their neighbor on the North, dwelled on
Russian-Ukrainian relations or fumed about collapse of the Soviet Union. In
1994, attaining independence was a foregone conclusion for everybody that I
came across as a student and a reporter for a popular newspaper. I haven`t
noticed that Russian-speaking or Ukrainian-speaking citizens of Ukraine
differed in their attitude to this issue.    

As of November 2013, more than half of the broadcasting on the
eight biggest channels in Ukraine was done in Russian (50.3%), 31.8 % in
Ukrainian and 17.9% in both languages. In theaters, 28.7% of all movies were
shown in Russian language.  Education is
predominantly in Ukrainian (82%) but in the city of Sevastopol only 3.3% of
students went to Ukrainian schools, 7.6% in the whole of Crimea and slightly less
than half in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. (http://news.bigmir.net/ukraine/770351-Sityaciya-z-movami-v-Ykraini-rosiiska-perevajae-na-TB-y-ZMI-ta-reklami-ykrainska-dominye-v-osviti-ta-kino)

Russians are not persecuted on the basis of their ethnicity
in Ukraine either. One can find hundreds of addresses, personal and collective,
of ethnic Russians in Ukraine who ensured Putin that their rights are all right
and have asked him to stay away. ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/ukraine_in_russian/2014/03/140305_ru_s_russian_culture.shtml

It is no surprise that Russian UN representative Vitaliy
Churkin was unable to present a single valid example of persecution of Russians
in Ukraine during meetings of UN Security Council.

Well, if it is not ethic Russians or Russian-speaking
populations as a group, then who are those people whose interests differ that
much from the rest of Ukrainian population that in order to defend them the
neighboring state deems it necessary to use tanks, ships, artillery and heavy
propaganda?  

According to the latest study by KIIS and Center for Social
and Marketing Studies released on March 10, 12% Ukrainian citizens support  annexing all or part of Ukraine by Russia and
9%  even welcome foreign troops in their
land if that what it takes. (http://www.dif.org.ua/ua/events/sethseth.htm) 

The highest number of pro-Russian population is in Crimea
-41%, which is still much lower than result of the so called referendum
(97%).  In Donetsk oblast, Ukraine
entering Russian Federation favors 33%, which is the second highest. In
Kharkiv, which experiences violent pro-Russian movement only 15% of residents
find the idea of being subjects to Putin`s rule attractive (http://www.dif.org.ua/ua/mass_media/nknvbkehrjherjhgvbkoejrt.htm).

It is clear that while most of those people might be ethnic
Russians or Russian speakers they don`t represent values and foreign policy
orientation of the majority of Russian population in Ukraine. Who they are and
why they want to forfeit Ukrainian independence rather than personally immigrate
to Russia is still not entirely clear. Few journalists, most notably Denis
Kazansky of Donetsk, suggested that they share a Soviet mentality and still
haven`t accepted demise of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence.
(http://gazeta.ua/ru/blog/41703/denis-kazanskij-otlichnye-stati) However,
sociologists reject this claim: while pro-Russian population predominantly
lives in the East and South of Ukraine, paternalistic features of Soviet
mentality are equally represented in all regions (http://www.dif.org.ua/ua/mass_media/nknvbkehrjherjhgvbkoejrt.htm).

Ukrainian citizens in the east and west differ in their
foreign policy orientation and what television they watch. Russian television
with its virulent anti-Ukrainian propaganda and manipulative technologies is almost
ignored in the Western and Central Ukraine but eagerly consumed in its Eastern
region (78% of all viewers of Russian television channels live in the East of
Ukraine). http://www.dif.org.ua/ua/events/telebacnih-novin.htm

It is still unclear to which degree they seek out
anti-Ukrainian messages or were affected by them (as of March 26, Ukrainian cable
companies are required to block four Russian TV channels but they still can be viewed
online and via satellite) but it certainly evident that this is a value-based
distinction, not ethic or linguistic.

The US and EU government and citizens should understand that
the claim by Vladimir Putin that they defend Russians and a Russian-speaking
minority which is being prosecuted is absolutely bogus. Russian actions are
viewed positively in Ukraine by a minority of like-minded people, which were
never prosecuted in the first place, agitated by Russian TV propaganda and
organized by Russian agents. It is almost the same if Francophiles in US were
asking France to intervene militarily because the US government and media are
pro-American.

Ukrainian media and foreign broadcasters in Ukraine should
find out why certain segment of population prefers television of the
neighboring country and offer some product, which would be appealing for this
audience but still keep them in the orbit of Ukrainian state.

Vladimir Putin has to understand that support for his actions
in Ukraine is rather small even among ethnic Russian and Russian speakers in
the Eastern part of the country. In case if he cares, of course.   

Lastly, Russian aggression in Ukraine sped up formation of
Ukrainian nation as a political unity. People like me regardless where they
were born or where they live, what last name they have or what language they
speak can now proudly say: “I am Ukrainian.”    

Tatiana Vorozhko (Koprowicz) has worked for the Voice of American Ukrainian Service in Washington D.C. since March 2007 as a host, reporter and an editor for the daily Chas Time show and writes a monthly column for Ukrainian “Women’s` Magazine.