Language choice, bilingualism and identity in wartime Ukraine

Sunday 25 January 2026

War sharpens distinctions that peace permits to remain blurred. In Ukraine, the full-scale invasion has not only redrawn front lines and recalibrated alliances; it has accelerated a long, uneven reckoning with language, belonging and political loyalty. Questions that once appeared cultural or generational have become urgent, moral and sometimes painfully personal. Which language one speaks in public, at work or at home has acquired meanings that extend far beyond communication.

Ukraine has always been linguistically plural. Ukrainian and Russian have coexisted for centuries, their relative prestige shaped by imperial rule, Soviet policy and regional history. In western cities such as Lviv, Ukrainian predominated even under Soviet rule; in the east and south, Russian often functioned as the language of urban life, higher education and industry. Independence in 1991 did not erase these patterns. Instead, it produced a bilingual state in which language choice was widely understood as situational rather than ideological.

That settlement began to fray after 2014, when Russia’s annexation of Crimea and her intervention in the Donbas politicised language in ways unseen since independence. Yet even then, many Ukrainians continued to navigate bilingualism pragmatically. Russian-speaking Ukrainians served in the army, voted for pro-European parties and identified unequivocally with the Ukrainian state. The invasion of 2022 changed the emotional register. Russian ceased to be merely a language associated with a neighbour; for many, it became the language of shelling, occupation and atrocity.

The shift has been most visible in public space. Ukrainian has become dominant in administration, media, education and commerce, not simply by law but by social expectation. In Kyiv, where Russian was once ubiquitous, the soundscape has altered markedly. Cafés, offices and even informal conversations between strangers increasingly default to Ukrainian. This is not always the result of formal enforcement. Rather it reflects a collective decision to assert a shared civic identity in the face of existential threat.

At the same time, bilingualism has not disappeared. Millions of citizens continue to speak Russian at home or with family members, particularly older relatives. Within the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russian remains widely understood and often spoken alongside Ukrainian, especially in units drawn from the east and south. Wartime necessity has reinforced a distinction between language as a marker of loyalty and language as a tool. Fluency in Russian can be operationally useful, whether for intelligence gathering, interrogation or communication across front lines.

This tension lies at the heart of Ukraine’s current linguistic moment. On one hand, Ukrainian is being consciously elevated as a symbol of sovereignty and historical continuity. For many citizens, switching to Ukrainian is experienced as an act of resistance, a daily reaffirmation that the state endures. On the other hand, the state has largely avoided criminalising or stigmatising Russian speech itself. The emphasis has been on promoting Ukrainian rather than punishing bilingualism, a choice that reflects both democratic instinct and strategic prudence.

The generational dimension is striking. Younger Ukrainians, particularly those educated after independence, often possess native or near-native Ukrainian and are more likely to adopt it exclusively in public life. For them, language choice aligns naturally with a European orientation and a post-Soviet worldview. Older citizens may find such transitions more difficult, not out of political reluctance but habit and emotional association. Wartime Ukraine has therefore become a space of quiet, uneven linguistic change, shaped by empathy as much as by policy.

International observers sometimes misread this process as ethnic or linguistic nationalism. Such interpretations overlook the civic character of Ukrainian identity as it has evolved under fire. Ukraine’s resistance has been led by citizens of diverse linguistic backgrounds, united less by mother tongue than by shared political commitment. The invasion has demonstrated with brutal clarity that Russian language use did not confer protection, privilege or affinity in the eyes of Moscow. This realisation has stripped away lingering illusions inherited from the Soviet Union era, in which linguistic unity was claimed as evidence of political harmony.

None of this implies a simple or irreversible outcome. Language habits are deeply personal and rarely change overnight. Nor is it inevitable that Russian will vanish from Ukrainian life. It may instead settle into a narrower, more private role, detached from public authority and state symbolism. The more consequential change lies in perception. Ukrainian has become the unmarked language of citizenship, the default medium through which the state speaks to her people and the people speak to one another as a political community.

Wartime has compressed decades of linguistic evolution into a few traumatic years. In doing so, it has clarified a truth long obscured by coexistence and compromise. In Ukraine today, language choice is no longer merely about what is understood. It is about what is affirmed. Bilingualism remains a lived reality, but identity has acquired a sharper edge. To speak Ukrainian in wartime is, for many, to declare that the future will not be dictated by the language of invasion, but by the language of a sovereign state that has chosen to endure.