ZOiS Spotlight 14/2025

Identity Speaks: How Language Ideologies Are Reshaping Ukraine

by Liudmyla Pidkuimukha 16/07/2025

For Ukrainians, Ukrainian is far more than just the official state language. It has become the voice of resistance, an expression of political healing, cultural identity, and a radical break with Russian imperialism. But how far-reaching and lasting is this renunciation of Russian?

A Russian letter on a sign has been crossed out and replaced by a Ukrainian one. A woman takes a photo of it with a smartphone.
An exhibition on language and decolonisation opened in Dnipro in Eastern Ukraine in July 2024. IMAGO / Avalon.red

‘The Ukrainian political nation is being formed thanks to the Revolution of Dignity and war,’ noted historian Timothy Snyder. To this observation can be added that Ukraine’s identity, culture, and language have also been transforming during the war with Russia that started in 2014. Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, language ideologies – the beliefs, values, and emotions people associate with language – have shifted significantly across Ukrainian society.

This evolution is reflected in nationwide surveys, personal stories, the media, and cultural outputs. The key questions are: what does this shift look like in practice, and what might it mean for Ukraine’s future?

Shifting to Ukrainian: strategies and tendencies

Survey data show a clear trend: people in Ukraine, where both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, have been switching to Ukrainian since February 2022, and support has grown for the ideology of ‘one nation – one (state) language’. Even before the country adopted a landmark law in 2019 to protect and promote the use of Ukrainian, there had been a steady increase in the number of people who believed that Ukrainian should be the sole state language – a status that the legislation achieved. The commissioner for the protection of the state language oversees the law’s implementation.

In a survey in December 2022, 41 per cent of respondents said they spoke only Ukrainian, while 17 per cent said they did so ‘in most situations’. In contrast, just 6 per cent spoke only Russian, and 9 per cent mainly Russian. A further 24 per cent used both languages equally. Compared with 2017, the share of those who spoke only or mostly Ukrainian increased by 9 percentage points, while the number of Russian speakers fell by 11 percentage points.

The regional breakdown is more striking: even in the predominantly Russian-speaking east and south of Ukraine, the proportion of Ukrainian speakers now equals or surpasses that of Russian speakers. While 95 per cent of survey respondents in the west of the country were fluent in Ukrainian, this figure dropped to 65 per cent in the centre, 60 per cent in the south, and 50 per cent in the east. In the latter three regions, large proportions of respondents reported that their level of Ukrainian was sufficient for everyday communication but that they found it difficult to speak on specialised topics. By contrast, only 4 per cent of those in the west had such limitations.

For those who want to improve their Ukrainian, free language courses are available in all regional centres and smaller towns, including programmes specifically for military personnel. Various civic and educational initiatives, such as Perekhod’ na Ukraїnsku (Switch to Ukrainian), Ye-Mova, and the Yedyni (United) movement, offer free language courses and support people in overcoming psychological barriers in their transition to Ukrainian.

The rise of Ukrainian in literature, business, and pop culture

The symbolic power of switching languages has been especially visible among Ukrainian writers. Some, such as Volodymyr Rafeenko, Olena Stiazhkina, and Iya Kiva, switched from Russian to Ukrainian after Moscow occupied their home cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. In an interview, Rafeenko said that Ukrainian had become a kind of ‘medicine’ to treat his ‘wounded and bleeding soul’. For these writers, language is not only a communication tool but a form of emotional and political healing, a deliberate break with an imperial legacy, and a means of security.

This rupture extends to the business world. Stereotyped in Soviet times as a peasant vernacular, Ukrainian has gained the status of a language of leadership and resilience. After the full-scale invasion, numerous chief executives and entrepreneurs adopted Ukrainian, often citing the language as a means of distancing themselves from Russian influence. The shift was not just pragmatic but ideological, with language as a boundary, a unifying symbol, and a cultural bulwark. A striking example is the magazine Forbes Ukraine, which was published only in Russian from 2011 to 2015, then in both languages, and since March 2022 exclusively in Ukrainian.

Shifting language ideologies are also visible in Ukrainian pop culture. Influencers, YouTubers, and pop stars have publicly switched to Ukrainian. Some have re-released earlier Russian-language songs with Ukrainian lyrics, giving their work a second life. Pop singer Volodymyr Dantes even issued an apology for having made Russian-language music and spoken Russian in the past. However, the shift is not uniform or irreversible. Several public figures who switched to Ukrainian in 2022 have since resumed posting in Russian on social media.

Ukrainian writer and singer Irena Karpa notes that in Kyiv, whose residents spoke almost exclusively Ukrainian after the full-scale invasion, more Russian is now being heard again. She wonders whether this shift comes from people who had adopted Ukrainian out of fear, covert pro-Russia sympathisers, or those who no longer feel the need to show their patriotism and are reverting to what feels most comfortable. This ambivalence underscores that language ideologies are not static. They are dynamic and often shaped by emotional, political, and social circumstances.

Past the point of no return

The trajectories of language ideologies in Ukraine remain open ended. It is impossible to predict how they will develop a year from now or after the war ends. But one thing is clear: Ukraine has crossed a threshold. While the legacy of the Russian language and the Russian Empire has not been entirely erased, it has been deeply challenged. Ukrainians have begun to dismantle the symbolic foundations of imperial influence, not only by changing the language they speak, but also by reimagining what language means.

In a time of destruction and dislocation, Ukrainian is being redefined as a language of unity, agency, and resistance. Whether this transformation can endure will depend on the everyday choices and attachments of millions of Ukrainians.


Dr Liudmyla Pidkuimukha is a sociolinguist and Slavicist who specialises in language policy, ideology, and cultural studies. She is currently a fellow at the Competence Network for Interdisciplinary Ukraine Studies Frankfurt (Oder)-Berlin.