https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/ac726d4b-3a78-40ba-80a4-3f214bcfa66b Classic Putin: contradicting himself, going round in circles and recycling his past justifications for the war. He argues that 'even Ukrainian nationalists speak Russian at home', as if that were a reason for... what exactly? In his 2021 article 'On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians', he argued that historic and linguistic ties meant they belonged to 'one nation', implying they should also live in one state. Of course, this state would be ruled by Russians, who had by that time enshrined themselves as the 'state-forming nation' in the constitution of the Russian Federation, which was supposedly multi-ethnic. By using the 'Russian world' and 'one nation' clichés, Putin implies that anyone who speaks Russian belongs to the Russian empire and should be returned to it by force if necessary. He attempted to do this half a year later by starting the war against Ukraine in February 2022. However, by saying that 'even Ukrainian nationalists speak Russian', Putin is contradicting himself on at least two points. If they speak Russian, why are they willing to sacrifice their lives to avoid becoming part of Russia? Secondly, if the Russian language was subject to such terrible repression in Ukraine as Putin claimed in 2021–22, how come it is still being spoken so freely? The answer to the first question is crucial: The war is not about language; it's about the architecture of society. Ukrainian culture (and Polish etc), has always been based on the recognition of individual freedoms, equality, and peer-to-peer relations. Russians, who split from the original Kievan Rus following the Mongol invasion, have an entirely different model: a collective society in which 'one is nothing, one is a zero' (Mayakovsky). The Tsar is the exception, however, as his power is sacred and must not be questioned, even if he makes terrible mistakes, which he always does. This is a fact that Putin completely fails to recognise or rejects. His "you speak Russian so you're mine" narrative is a fallacy whose absurdity becomes evident if you imagine him claiming the same about English spoken in the USA, French spoken in Morocco etc. The answer to the second question, about "repression of Russian language", is much more trivial - the narrative is and had been always fake. Ukraine never "banned" Russian language, it merely introduced laws that promoted the state language, which since 1991 had been always one - Ukrainian, for example requiring it in official communications. This infuriated Putin, because his control over Ukraine was always based on the same techniques he used for gradual Russification of national minorities in Russia - presenting their languages as "village speak", "languages to speak at home", "funny languages" etc, while all education and administrative careers required fluent Russian. Fri, 05 Jun 2026 02:47:13 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.echelon.pl https://video.echelon.pl/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/ac726d4b-3a78-40ba-80a4-3f214bcfa66b All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.echelon.pl/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.