> changing the language used for instruction to Ukrainian,
Isn't that what Turkey does to kurds? Changing language of everything to turkish?
You seem clueless in ethnic matters. Imagine your children school changing the "language of instruction" to French.
Worse yet, the people of the website you are quoting are just as clueless and entirely not understanding what's going on here. To the extent of giving themself out.
Is the name calling really necessary? I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's hard to have a civil conversation on this topics, but I thought we were off to a strong start.
I'm not sure why you keep putting "language of instruction" in quotes, like it is a euphemism. It just means "the language the teachers use in schools." Attending schools that are taught in something other than a person's native language is an extremely common experience around the world. Many nations think it is a good idea to have a standardized language of instruction in their schools.
Is it a form of cultural repression? I see how it can be. We have had some political battles here in the U.S. about whether it is appropriate to provide public-school instruction in Spanish in areas with many Latino students. The battle lines in that debate are basically where you'd expect: some people emphasize the need for people to "assimilate" while others want to allow them to learn in whatever language is best for them and emphasize preservation of their culture. Certainly far worse happens to other cultures around the world and nobody bats an eyelash. And I've certainly never heard of any calls for a special military operation to "liberate" Latinos from U.S. communities because the local schools teach classes in English!
Other countries (like Turkey with Kurdish) have gone much farther and actually banned the use of a language in various contexts--i.e., they don't just not use the language, they criminally prosecute people who do. In Turkey, people have been charged with "insulting Turkishness" or even treason, and been sent to prison, for speaking Kurdish in official settings, playing Kurdish music, etc.[1][2] If there's evidence of this going on in Ukraine, that might change my view. But so far everything I've heard about Ukraine absolutely pales in comparison. (Again, I don't necessarily credit every single one of these accounts. But in this case I have actually known some Kurdish refugees, and this generally aligns with their take on life in Turkey.)
Well, that raises a question. Are 120 million Russians upset merely because Russian speaking children in Ukraine will be educated in Ukrainian (while still enjoying the legally guaranteed ability to learn Russian in school)? That seems implausible to me, and not consistent with the Russian media I've seen. I think most of the Russians in support of the war think that much worse things are happening than that. What's your sense?
Cultural repression is a matter of degree, of course, and I'm a bit cautious about making pronouncements about what is serious and what is not. But I'll put it this way: on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is "no problem" and 10 is "special military operation," I'd rate the level of repression we've been discussing in this thread far closer to a 1 than a 10.
And, of course, we haven't discussed the fact that part of the justification for the Ukrainian language laws has been to undo decades of de-Ukrainianization at the hands of the Soviet Union. It's hard to say how to actually weigh these competing interests, so I won't try. But it is certainly there.
I'm not justifying the war here. I'm merely stating that being Russian-speaking in Ukraine was a lousy deal for a long time. And we're talking about whole regions here, not ordinary families.
Russian speaking people don't need to learn Russian in school (that much) since obviously they already know it. They need to study in Russian because, among other things, this is the tool they already have.
Isn't that what Turkey does to kurds? Changing language of everything to turkish?
You seem clueless in ethnic matters. Imagine your children school changing the "language of instruction" to French.
Worse yet, the people of the website you are quoting are just as clueless and entirely not understanding what's going on here. To the extent of giving themself out.