A popular pro-Russian politician in #Poland once again amplifies the popular #Russia narrative about “languages spoken in #Ukraine”, trying to demonstrate that “majority of people speak Russian”.

But apart of using old and manipulated data, he distracts the debate from simple international law facts to vague “common sense” heuristics, where speaking a language automatically means belonging to some culture or country and - above all - gives those countries some moral or political right over other countries. Following this line, one would have to conclude that the US automatically has a right to the UK, Australia or Ireland (and anyone can come up with a dozen of such examples from their region). For starters, the fact that I speak fluent Russian does not imply that I’m culturally Russian or expect “protection” from Russia.

Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion is 100% cultural and civilisation war between two competing models of governance - the archaic feudal-autocratic model of Russia, and the “democracy of peers” model which has been always widespread among Slavs in the form of veche assemblies.