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9easily, so freely, with the Russian soldiers.
Like a great many of his countrymen —
especially in the east, where the invasion
began — he is a native Russian speaker.
The language question has been a pain-
ful one in Ukrainian politics, though it
looms far larger in the minds of Krem-
lin propagandists than it does in actual
Ukrainian life. There are young Ukrai-
nians for whom it is a matter of princi-
ple and honor to not speak Russian, the
language of the former empire. And the
government periodically passes conten-
tious laws that aim to encourage further
Ukrainianization. But most people con-
tinue to speak the language that makes
most sense to them in their everyday
lives, sometimes switching between thetwo depending on the context and sit-
uation. Russian propaganda claims that
the language is discriminated against, and
there are people in Russia who believe
that you will get shouted at, or even
attacked, for speaking Russian in Kyiv.
Yet in the videos now emerging from
Ukraine, over and over again, people are
speaking Russian. Soldiers speak Russian
as they fi re rocket-propelled grenades at
Russian tanks. Locals speak Russian as
they survey annihilated Russian columns.
Americans are accustomed to wars that
take place far away, against people who
don’t so casually speak our language, but
of course most wars take place between
people who live right next to one another.
Russia invading Ukraine is less like ourwars in Iraq or Vietnam and more like the
United States invading Canada.
What was Putin thinking? We know a
fair amount about this: Last summer he
published, on the Kremlin’s website, a
very long essay on ‘‘The Historical Unity
of Russia and Ukraine.’’ He repeated some
of its contents in a long televised speech
on the eve of his invasion. The essential
argument was that Ukraine could not
exist if it moved away from Russia —
because it was part of Russia, and always
had been.
The answer to these historical rumi-
nations came, again, from Zelensky —
and, again, in Russian, as the president
switched languages during a speech in
order to directly address the RussianDate on which a
Day of Ukrainian
Literature and
Language has,
since 1997, been
observed: Nov. 9