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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not the same as the ethnic Russians, especially now. My anecdotal experience and what I've heard of Ukrainian refugees in Finland is that clear majority speaks Russian (they're usually from Eastern areas since that's where the fighting is) and a clear majority also firmly supports the Ukrainian war effort. The actual ethnic Russian areas (ie. the separatist-controlled areas before 2022 and Crimea) had already been detached from Ukrainian control before 2022.

Nobody thinks that the Irish speaking English means they consider themselves English, but for some reason the idea of someone speaking Russian yet not being Russian seems very hard to understand for many.

There are some born-in-Russia Russians actively fighting against Russia, that doesn't mean they're not Russian. The commander in chief of the Ukrainian army is Russian! There are also many Ukrainians (in the geographic sense) fighting against Ukraine. This conflict has dynamics of both a civil and interstate war, identity is complicated.

Those who fled to Finland would logically be anti-Russian. The Ukrainians who fled to Russia would presumably be the opposite.

Sure, there are all sorts of people. The point is that Ukrainian-speaking Russians and ethnic Russians in Ukraine are two wholly different categories, and even if someone was applying some sort of "liberating the ethnic Russians" logic to pre-2022 conquests, it no longer would apply to the post-2022 conquests basically in any sense.

Ukraine and the West's official war aim is to retake all Ukraine's 2014 territories which include millions of Russians. There are many more inside Ukraine's currently controlled territory, where being Russian is not very popular. There are fundamental differences between the two states that can no longer be resolved diplomatically.

There's also the strategic dimension regarding control in the Black Sea, bases and so on.