War in Ukraine: no place for Russian language and heritage in Odesa • FRANCE 24 English

The Russian invasion that began a year ago has left an indelible mark on Ukrainian society.  The Russian language is slowly losing ground to Ukrainian, a fact often used by President Vladimir Putin to justify the invasion. Ukraine’s culture including literature, music and art are particularly affected by the growing phenomenon of de-Russification. FRANCE 24 reports from Odesa, a coastal city in southern Ukraine, where Russian language and culture are deeply rooted. 
#Ukraine #Odesa #war

[arianm.]

Katerina was not russian but German and she liberated Ukraine from ottomans !!!

[nathanyahoo-xn]

Maybe they should put a statue of Zelensky, Biden and Boris Johnson doing a group hug instead.

[terencebrowne]

Taking down statues of Catherine, Pushkin, and Koniev and replacing them with "heroes" like Stephan Bandera is just about all I need to know about Ukraine.

[mohf]

I spent 3 months studying russian at a language school in odessa in 2020. Russian is the primary language of most people in the city. This would be like canada banning the use of French in Montreal. The russian language didn't invade ukraine, the russian army did. Speaking a certain language doesn't make you a bad person and ignoring history doesn't solve today's issues.

[ryansurgison]

This is a terrible idea, vilification of your own population, stopping people speaking a language at all is an element of fascism. Not defending the invasion in any way at all just to be Crystal clear. But this gives verbal ammunition to Vladimir Putin making one of his points correct. Why would you give him an easy point like that? Erasing history, culture and a language in general is always a terrible idea. I guarantee most people in Crimea do not want to go back to Ukraine because of something like this. Ukrainian authorities are just shooting themselves in the foot on this one. Disappointing to see really.

[kenmichigwan]

Using fear to make people speak a language they don't speak is sad

[inigoacha]

How an statue of a founder of a city is somehow an insult to the ppl living in it ?
Your are going nuts, with the Pancho Villa operation.

[crothrash]

You do realize that this is fascism! People will call me a russian bot for saying so, even though I'm not pro russian at all, I'm a Croatian and I know what we've been through in the 90's and I sympathize with Ukrainians a lot, but just read a history book!

[dragon]

The same thing happened in Germany during Hitler's time ..

[admir]

"For 300 years there has been a Jewish Krakow. From now on, those 300 years are a rumor. They never happen".

Amon Goeth, The Schindlers List

[poppystars]

And this is why your country is being torn apart!

[AKrn]

They tried to do this in Mariupol nine years ago and look what happened.

[localboss]

Can it be called "Cultural Genocide"?!

[ahmedhz]

Russia said that ukraine is cracking on the russian language. Doing this just proves russian point of view and will be able to justify the war. Its better not to force anyone to change language

[marksimpson]

This has been one of the problems which led up to the war banning Russian language to Russian and other ethnic languages like Hungarian

[duncansmith]

and here is the heart of the problem. derussification = compelling Russian speakers and ethnic Russians to look to Russia to confirm their identity, rather than to the tolerant and accepting Ukraine pre 2014.
Had Ukraine practiced the inclusivity preached by the West, we would never have arrived at this point. There are reasons why Crimea and Donbass abandoned Ukraine, and it wasn't any shift in attitudes in Moscow, but in Kiev.

[chingghishan]

As an Indian whose family existed throughout the decades of war with Pakistan.

I am… actually shocked by how far these people are going.

They banned…. Russian music? After 1991? Like…. Even during the Indo pak war Bollywood was still popular in Pakistan.

Another thing. You can be fined for writing stuff in Russian…

Which would be considered ridiculous or impossible during the Indo Pak war, Its like banning people from writing Urdu in India despite 72 million reading and writing it.

Its a very bizzare concept to me.

[Vixctor]

I live in Åland, an autonomous island that belongs to Finland. In 2012 Russia "gifted" our capitol Mariehamn a statue of Maria Alexandrovna whom the town is named after. I've suggested that the statue should be displaced from the park it's in to outside the Russian consulate in Mariehamn.
Someone painted the statue with the Ukranian flag's colors recently.

[Berlynic]

GLORY TO UKRAINE! It's so beautiful to see Ukrainians going back to their roots and reclaiming their identity 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🙏🙏🙏❤❤❤❤👏👏👏👏🥂🥂🥂🥂 FINALLY!!!💪💪💪❤❤❤🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

[iqbalsohel]

speak in own mother language is anyone very first basic right. because of this we separated from pakistan 50 years back. no one can stop others culture. mutual respect between different culture languages are very much needed. you cant hate all people of west because of destroying Libya .. this is madness