Russians and Russophilia in Ukraine

 Russians in Ukraine

One of the reasons for Russian invasion of Ukraine was a claim that ethnic Russians are persecuted by government in Kyiv. While ethnic Russians do exist in Ukraine, they are by far a minority, heavily concentrated in Crimea, Donbas, Kharkiv and southern Zaporizhya oblast. 

In the original 1991 (1922) borders Russians were 17% of the population, but if you exclude Crimea and Donbas this number will easily fall into single digits. And if you also exclude Kharkiv and Melitopol area, the number of Russians will drop to miniscule numbers. 

Fate of these border Russian communities can justify a border adjustment, but not a whole country takeover. Most of these areas are already under Russian control.

The rest of the country consists of people who do not see themselves as Russians and do not want to be part of Russia. 

Not only that but some people who identify as Russians or speak Russian language do not want to be part of Russia and would prefer to join EU and NATO instead. I myself grew up in Moscow in Russia, but do not want to live in Russia and much prefer NATO to Russian system.

Russophilia in Ukraine

Another claim Putin likes to make is that Russians and Ukrainians (and Belarussians for that matter) are so called "brother people". This "brother people" is a Soviet propaganda cliche that most people in Ukraine do not believe in. I would argue they did not believe it even in Soviet times, but there was censorship so we cannot know for sure. 

Regardless of if Ukrainians use to believe they are close to Russians or not, nowadays most Ukrainians see themselves as Europeans who are much closer to Poles or Slovaks than to Russians. Ukrainian language also has more in common with Polish than with Russian. Ukrainian culture and way of life is European, not Eurasian or whatever Putin likes to call its anti-democratic and anti0-liberal system they use. Many Russians in Moscow itself do not believe in this Eurasian system and protest to demand real democracy, one cannot expect this Eurasian system will be any more popular further West.

Nowadays Ukrainians see Russia as hostile state that wants to destroy its culture, language, identity and assimilate them into Russia. Not only that, but most Ukrainians now see Russia as a country with strong Turkic and Mongolic influences, that are alien to all Europeans and Ukrainians in particular. Russia's own interpretation of history does not acknowledge Mongolic influence, but as someone who knows history well, I can confirm that these claims are far from groundless.

There some in Ukraine who disagree with the idea that Ukrainians and Russians have little in common. They insist they feel closer to Russia than to Europe, oppose NATO and EU, and view West with hostility - the kind of views that Russia likes to repeat often. However, such Russophiles are a minority of total population. Just like ethnic Russians, Russophiles are heavily concentrated in Crimea and Donbas regions.

Actual Data of pro-Russian Sentiment

However, why speculate on levels of pro-Russian sentiment when we have actual data. Ukraine is not Russia where levels of public support of Alexei Navalny is heavy guarded secret, that Kremin fears more than nuclear war. Ukraine is a democracy and public support for near any issue is public knowledge.

Before Russian 2022 invasion, there was a pro-Russian opposition party that opposed NATO and advocated closer ties to Russia instead. This party was an outlet for those who does not support Ukraine's current course and instead wish to have closer ties to Russia.

As you can easily see from this map, the party's results are heavily varied based on the region. In few eastern areas they easily get more than half of total vote, but in most of the country they do not get more than 5% of the vote. 

Even certain mostly Russophone areas like Dnipro. Kherson, Mykolaiv or Odesa do not actually want to be part of Russia and would much rather join EU and NATO. A sour pill for Russian patriots to swallow, but a lot of Russians hate this Eurasian anti-western Russia Putin has created. That is by far dominant opinion among in Russian diasporas in Western countries.

Even if you look at older results of Yanukovych era Party of Regions, they show broadly the same picture. These results however have to be analysed critically as Party of Regions was not explicitly Russophile and instead advocated regionalism to get more support from areas that felt neglect by Kyiv.

This is the reality of pro-Russian sentiment of Ukraine. A few localities in the east have pro-Russian local majorities while most of the rest of the country sees Russia as enemy instead. 

These pro-Russian localities however produce a very desirable optics for Putin's regime in Moscow, as they play well into Russian narrative of Russians oppressed by mythical Nazis. Not only that but people from these areas are willingly playing their part in Kremlin's spectacle by going to Moscow and asking Putin to interfere against Kyiv on their behalf. 

They call their opponents Nazi, but reality is that their enemy is pretty much the entire 80% of the entire country. If you exclude Crimea and other occupied areas, then it will be more than 90% of the rest of the country. 

Conclusion

This is reality of popular opinion in Ukraine. Majority of Ukrainians hate Russia as an evil incarnate that tries to destroy their country, culture and language. Russia further seeks to deprive them of dignity of live Europe has to offer and replace it with its own abusive Eurasian system that neglect human rights and treats people like shit.

There is but a small minority in the east that looks up to Russia, because they feel attached to Russian culture or fear 'Banderites', NATO, EU and the West.

There are historical reasons for both of these opinions. That is why I advocated for different borders that better reflect the reality of public opinion in many of my past articles.

Nonetheless the new borders will be not a border between "brotherly nations" but a border between bitter enemies that have very little in common with each other. They will be heavily fortified as they will also be borders between the collective West and Putin's Eurasia. 

If we are lucky, we can also get a European Belarus and European Russia for those Russians and Belarussians who do not want to live like a Eurasian. I will cover Eurasia and history of Russia in a separate article.