A crash introduction to the ethnopolitical situation in Ukraine 🧵

People know that Ukraine is divided to Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking areas. That's correct. And yet, people assume that political allegiances match up with ethnoligustic ones. That's wrong.

First, how do we define Ukrainian and Russian-speaking zones? If Russian-speaking zone = where ppl predominantly converse in Russian, it's far bigger than that. In February 2014 I was on Maidan, lived, slept there. Everyone I met spoke Russian, except for one woman from Ternopol

That's a very important fact. There are indeed some clearly divided countries like Belgium. Dutch-speaking, rich, conservative Flanders and French-speaking, poor, left-wing Wallonia. Here political divisions match up with ethnolinguistic ones. But not in Ukraine

Almost everyone I met on Maidan spoke Russian among themselves. Many spoke very poor or no Ukrainian. And yet, they strongly identified as Ukrainians. Because ethnic identity and political allegiance in case of such mixed up areas as Eastern Europe are simply matters of choice

There is indeed a political division between the East and the West. As shown on this electoral map - yellow voted for pro-Russian Yanukovich, blue - for Timoshenko. And yet, many 'blue' regions are largely or predominantly Russian speaking. Language =/= identity or allegiance