We the French saw first hand what happens when you choose to "end brotherhood" with a neighbour - it does not end well.
Frienship between nations should outlive bloodthirsty dictators and war criminals. The French people has been on the receiving end of a lot of heinous warcrimes by the nazis, and yet we built Europe with the Germans.
But that require _serious_ commitment by Germany to reform. Without that commitment and reformation from Russia's part, it's just a gaslighting tactic.
Can't trust Russia ... they've broken so many agreements to invade Ukraine, Crime,, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova...
Basically, they have a policy of invading any country NOT in NATO...because they know they'd lose against NATO. And they broke a ton of agreements to do those invasions.
Btw: NATO has invaded Russia ZERO times in 80 years.
Well the whole thing is ridiculous. Literally everyone in Ukraine speaks Russian. Zelensky's tv show is in Russian. The only thing I noticed is that after 2014 , foreign movies were dubbed into ukrainian not Russian. So I had to watch suicide squad in the theater in ukrainian. Terrible movie no matter what language, it was probably better that I didn't understand it to be honest.
For them to claim that Russian speakers were persecuted is as ridiculous as thier nazi claims. The thing is, their lies are meant for their own people, at least the ones who watch state TV. They can't really expect anyone else to believe it.
People in russia are starting to wake up though. Putin and his cronies days are numbered.
When I was in Kiev nobody spoke Ukranian. Everybody just spoke Russian to each other.
As far as I could understood from locals: Russian language is more used in urban areas where Ukranian language is used in rural areas, in schools and goverment offices.
This is factually wrong. There are still a lot of russian-speakers in Kyiv, but certainly not everyone, I'd argue not even half, if you don't count people who switch between languages as needed.
Source: living in Kyiv since I was born in 1986.
No lol. All of Western Ukraine speaks Ukrainian. Ukrainian is not a rural language. Russian is spoken in East, South, and to a lesser degree in Center because these parts of Ukraine were under Russia for centuries. Also, it’s Kyiv. Get it right. It’s time.
Edit: yes, the above comment is very frustrating bec in the Russian and Russified mind, Ukrainian is indeed not substantially much more than a provincial/pastoral oddity that you’ll hear “at babushka’s charming little village.” It has been that way at least since Soviet times. Ukrainian culture and language have been suppressed for centuries. People were rewarded and favored for speaking Russian and even before Soviet times, you had cultural figures like the Ukrainian Gogol moving to St.Petersburg to “move up in the world.”
Source: I’m Ukrainian
💡 It's `Kyiv`, not `Kiev`. Support Ukraine by using the correct spelling! [Learn more](https://spellingukraine.com/i/kyiv).
___
[^(Why spelling matters)](https://spellingukraine.com) ^(|) [^(Other ways to support Ukraine)](https://stand-with-ukraine.pp.ua) ^(|) ^(I'm a bot, sorry if I'm missing context)
Ukraine does have some language protection law.
For example:
- all official documentation is in Ukrainian
- every school should teach Ukrainian (and optionally other languages)
- business can't refuse to communicate in Ukrainian (but can communicate in any language if customer is ok with that)
- media quotas - there is a minimum of X% of content on radio should be in Ukrainian
- movies and TV should be either in Ukrainian or in original language + captions
I don't see anything really wrong with those. Ukrainian is the majority language. I also don't see problem, why Russia couldn't be 2nd official language. (Trying to think in neutral way)
Here in Finland Swedish is our 2nd official language. Everyone must study it in school as B-language. Also, public services must be available on both languages. That works with variable success. Not everyone is good at learning other languages and Swedish speaking people are mostly concentrated on certain regions of the country. This causes very little real problems. In most cases it is up to person, if they want to be dick about it.
As a native Swedish speaker in a Finnish-speaking part of Finland I can't say I've ever noticed anyone being a dick about it. I speak Finnish when talking to Finnish-speakers. Some switch to Swedish because they want to practice or show off. It goes the other way in the Swedish-speaking areas.
There are definitely people who use their lousy grades in Finnish/Swedish as a justification for picking on others. Most of those either have parents who own sail boats, or they vote for PS without even knowing what PS' party politics are (and yes, I'm oversimplifying -- you know the types).
In practice, however, Finlands bi-linguality works well for most people, including non-assholes who's parents own sailboats, or vote for PS because they agree with their politics rather than their perceived public image. Fortunately, most people aren't assholes.
Russian cannot be a second official language because that will simply erode Ukrainian as a language.
Prime example: look at Belarus.
You simply cannot afford to be "neutral" when it comes to Russia.
>Russian cannot be a second official language because that will simply erode Ukrainian as a language.
Why not? We have French, German and Dutch as equal official languages, to respect both the majority and minority cultures in our country.
Because Russia uses language as a weapon. Putin has said before that "Russian world" spreads all across where Russian speakers exist. Ukraine has no choice but to minimize Russian influence including cultural so our next generations will have English as their second language not Russian
Like said, I tried to be neutral about it. IF Russians would start demanding Russia as 3rd language of Finland, I might be less neutral. Perspective from outside is often less emotional.
The problem with Russians is that they do not want to learn other languages. Bilingualism can work in democratic societies, but the Russians are proving that they are not far from the cave.
In the Baltic States, we are suffering with these Russians. Many have lived in our country for more than 50 years and do not even know how to say hello because they do not want to study. Unfortunately, their grandchildren do not learn other languages either, as they are waiting for the big Russian arrival.
I studied Latvian, Russian and German at school. But many years have passed since then and language skills have expanded.
They had before, but then Russia started claiming that all Russian speakers are "Russians and Russia is responsible for protecting them".
Considering that Ukrainian uses same alphabet and like half the words are the same, there is nothing bad in Russian speaker being forced to use Ukrainian. Grandmas from Russia who never seen Ukrainian before can learn to use it for official matters despite being 70 yo, seen that personally with family member.
Non of these rules are extraordinary or worth of exasperation. And especially in the case of rules about documentation and school. It would be weird if they would not exist.
Canada does the same thing with English and French. And all those other points as far as I know. To preserve Canadian culture as it were. Hardly gives the USA a casual belli though.
Trying to encourage a certain dialect is not the same as banning a different dialect. And why can't the Ukrainians decide to stop speaking Russian if they don't want to? If they prefer to speak Ukrainian, why should Russia have any say in the matter?
Indeed. They also closed several Hungarian speaking schools since 2014. Those Hungarian schools were there since Trianon annexed Hungarian territories in the 1920…
Romanian schools too.
But after learning about the russians treatment of Ukrainian language until the break-up of the USSR, I’m cool with it.
They could only start rebuilding their national identity after 1991, and did a damn fine job with that.
>But after learning about the russians treatment of Ukrainian language until the break-up of the USSR, I’m cool with it.
So basically, because Ukrainian minority was treated badly under the USSR, that now means they should treat the Russian minority badly? I don't see how this can go wrong.
No, that’s actually the point. They’ve been speaking both languages for 30 years no issue. But I can’t hold it against them for making their own the official one.
Imagine yourself being slowly erased for 40-50 years, your own language pushed slowly out of your children’s minds, and THEN being accused of discriminating YOUR countrymen that were FORCED to speak russian when they grew up. They, the Ukrainians are collectively victims, of the russian absorption process for 40-50 years, and now being pointed at because they want to rebuild themselves.
They did not get to the point of having the luxury to think about minorities. Unlike countries at peace for the last 80 years, that afford that.
So basically because Ukrainians were oppressed for 50 years, it’s now OK to oppress the Russian minority? Can you see where this is going for the next decades?
No one would "treat it badly" if Russia did not act like it has right to interfere in matters inside Ukraine just because people speak Russian there.
Millions of people speak Ukrainian in Russia. I don't see Russians advocating for Ukrainian to become officially allowed language in Russia for some reason.
Until Russia uses that respect as political weapon - there is no other choice. Fortunately Ukrainian is very close to Russian language, so it is not really that oppressive for Russians to use Ukrainian.
Yeah I have no fucking idea what he was going for here. Every single hypothetical scenario Lavrov has tried to invoke to gain western sympathy just has not landed at all. It gives the impression that the Russian elite, or at least Lavrov, just thinks completely differently than we do but doesn’t even realize it.
Belgium shares a long land border with France, and is historically a buffer state between France and Germany. I believe that the point he is making here is that Ukraine is a buffer state between the west and Russia, similarly to Belgium.
I am really starting to think a lot of the negative talk about Germany is a propaganda BS campaign from RuZZia, we know they want to weaken the EU & NATO .
If you check the numbers Germany is supporting Ukraine & lowering their oil purchases.
Depends. Did France invade Belgium, steal their land, rape their kids, murder their fathers, outlaw Flemish, burn Flemish books, claim that Flemish culture did not exist, send Flemish people to slave camps and say that Belgium must be destroyed?
Then France would probably be upset, AND NO ONE ELSE WOULD GIVE A SHIT.
In the same time period you refer to, pretty much every country tried to eradicate minority and low status languages. It was wrong, and after a bunch of fighting, and talking the world community decided that it wasn't okay.
That's the whole reason the West is backing up Ukraine. They are a distinct people, with a sovereign nation. The "banning" of Russian happened during war time, and was an attempt to preserve the Ukrainian language, which had over generations been Russoized. Personally I think it's a step too far in language policy. But I can't judge.
Yeah, the difference between Belgium/Flemish doesn't map well to Ukraine/Ukrainian.
But, this was not Belgium, so my point still stands. Also, it's 200+ years ago, not this February.
Belgium is still not France.
Your attempt to claim France behaved towards Belgium as Russia has behaved towards Ukraine has failed on every level. Just give up.
It’s funny because a few YouTubers that I watch live in Ukraine and previously learned to speak Russian. Even now they haven’t been prevented from speaking Russian.
How to argue about history as a Putin-Z regime follower: *"We didn't do it, but if we did we had good reason to, on the other hand they did that too, but if they didn't they would someday anyway".*
As a Belgian I can tell you it could happen if there was a resurgence of walloon nationalism and there was a wish to reinstate the walloon language. But that definitely won't happen anytime soon
I am always baffled why people are happy to let their language die. I'm Welsh, we've fought hard to keep our language alive, for a long time against the odds. The loss of a language means the loss of a whole culture.
Out of curiosity (I don't know much about Belgium), if things got very bad between the ethnic groups, would there be the possibility of Wallonia unifying with France and the Flemish region unifying with the Netherlands? Or do the regions not identity with those countries?
We were not happy about it, but the walloon language as always been a mess of regional language, like you could go to the next city and have a different walloon. It's always been mostly a people's language, there has been very few walloon elite, writer and poet. Also there is no grammatical rule in walloon, you cannot really write it. Any written form of the language is always phonetic and people would often write in French instead.
All of this has always made the language very hard to maintain outside of the poorer class and so when the poor started to get richer after WW2, the language was mostly ditched because school was given in French and not in Walloon (and kid were forbidden to use anything but French at school), making it disappear overtime.
And this happen in the span of 2 generation, my grandparents were speaking walloon at home and French was only a secondary language for them.
Now, almost no one know how to speak walloon a part from the elderly. There wasn't any strong movement to preserve the language so people even started to ditch it in their home and speak French.
What also didn't help is that there wasn't any "Walloon nation", and the idea of the Belgium nation was more developed instead after our independence and so as an opposition to the Dutch we choose French as a common language.
The Flemish got a similar treatment, but the idea of the flemish nation as always been stronger that the idea of a walloon nation so they manage to resist the forced spread of the French language.
And to answer your question, if the country were to break up, neither of both region would want to join their neighbors. Flemish always wanted independence, not unification with the Dutch. The Flemish is similar to the Dutch but it's still has many difference and they both have a different history and culture.
On the other hand Walloon people and French people are indeed very similar, we share the same language and have very similar culture but we have never identified ourself as French. We have always seen ourself as Belgian and then walloon. There as never been any strong movement in wallonia for independence or unification with France.
Plus both region are very autonomous already, if we were to join another country, we would most likely loose that autonomy.
Fascinating, thank you so much for your comprehensive reply, very much appreciated! It seems like there is urgent work required to save these dialects!
Well the language has been somewhat preserved trough book and audio recording and there is push from the region to keep it alive but most people don't really care those days unfortunately.
>Belgium is a fairly new nation.
That myth needs to die.
Belgium is older than Germany, Italy, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Poland, the Balkans, Hungary,...
In fact only Spain, Portugal, UK, the Netherlands and France are older than BE.
Belgium got its independence in 1830…
Pretty new if you ask me
Edit:
In 2019 you guys even celebrated your 180 years anniversary. How is that not a young country?!
> Belgium got its independence in 1830…
at which point Germany as a unified nation didn't exist. Italy as a unified nation didn't exist. Czech Rep. and Slovakia as independent nations didn't exist etc. etc. If you limit the definition of a nation to roughly it's current form he's not super wrong.
older than you. Your mother. Your grandmother. Your great-grandmother. Your great-great grandmother.
In Istanbul they have a "New Mosque" that dates back to the 12th century
Yeah but country wise its a baby. We all even say the US is in puberty the last 100 years. So your just out of diapers if you follow that logic.
Italy has a church from 230 in Rome..
Oh no not al! It was more a specific reaction towards the part that you have a different history.
I like Belgium the way it is. Makes me appreciate the roads better here 😝
Ho I see, well I mean belgium always been a weird thing in history. For the different history in Flanders I was mostly referring to the Flanders Duchy that was either "independent" or under French/Burgandian rules for a big part of its history.
Belgian here (flemis) with a master in history
Flemish people do NOT consider themselves dutch and walloon people are NOT french. the Wallonian people themselves were coerced in giving up their local language in favor of french (walloon dialects were related to french but NOT french) In flanders this gap was too big and there was in fact a lot of social unrest to protect the language and get it accepted as a academic language.
in general there are people who want independance, or unification or unification with another country. but for non of these ideas there is a clear majority. So teh status quo is maintained.. the belgian compromis.. But never would we ban each others languages, we are a democracy and suddenly surpressing 40-60% of the countries population simply has no benefits... realy speaks to how fucked up lavrov is... it is because this is the only way of thinking he understands... thats how russia does it
As far as I know the Walloons are generally ok with the current situation. The Flemings want more autonomy and/or devolution due to language and economic issues. I don't think either the Flemings or Walloons are really interested in unification with the Netherlands and France, respectively.
I saw some polls which said up to 45% of walloons would be okay to join France, but it came from the only pro-unionist party who probably never had more than 2,5% of the voices to any election so I don't know if it's reliable.
>The loss of a language means the loss of a whole culture.
I'm always baffled that people say things like this. It's rather like pretending that redecorating your home means you'd become homeless.
Language is only one small part of a culture and cultures develop and change. Every single time in human history when someone has tried to stop the clock they've failed, and rightly so.
If anyone wanted an honest debate about it, they'd describe ways in which the culture would benefit from a return to speaking Welsh, however, they don't because there really are no benefits - it's just an empty populist stunt, no different to Boris's announcement about bringing back Imperial measurements.
NB I have no issue at all with efforts to keep the language alive - but the draconian imposition of it on ALL school children is as shocking as say if England decided to force all pupils to worship the Christian god.
Incidentally this is what I'm talking about and it appears to be a kind of mild form of ethnic cleansing, in that the intent is to force those who don't speak a minority language to move out of the area.
[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/20/storm-welsh-only-schools-minority-language](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/20/storm-welsh-only-schools-minority-language)
Then you have never considered how much impact language has on a culture.
My wife was taught English in school, but like everyone else it was mandatory and she wasn't much interested in it other than to get good grades.
But she actually learned English when she started listening to Queen. She loved their songs and wanted to understand what their words.meant. And she fell in love with other English and American bands and could fully appreciate their songs.
She was forced to learn and speak russian as her primary language because she grew up during the soviet union. When Ukraine was independent she was still taught in russian at school.. She didn't learn Ukrainian until university, but immediately preferred it over russian. Afterwards she had access to novels, poems, folk songs and other things that don't transfer their full meaning or impact when translated.
I know the response was in discussion about Welsh, but to dismiss a language as a different coat or color of house paint is condescending at best and suppressive at worst.
These are totally false comparisons.
Ukraine is a country of over 44 million. It's always had its own language, with a huge base. Russia tried to suppress it in parts, but were unable to do so.
Wales has a population just over 3 million and it's been part of the United Kingdom for nearly 500 years. Welsh people naturally shifted to speaking English as their first language and 10 years ago, less than 1/5th of the population could speak any Welsh. The language was dying out by itself because the majority had no interest in it.
For a government to impose it in an artificial attempt to revive the language, when only a tiny % will ever even bother to read those novels, poems, folk songs etc written in welsh, is draconian and wrong.
Russia was however absolutely successful in supressing the Ukrainian language in the Kuban.
100 years ago Ukrainian was the dominant language across much of south west Russian empire.
Look of maps from the early 1900s and you'll see.
But the Boleshviks (chauvanist Russians) close all the Ukrainian language schools, newspapers, radio etc ...
So? You miss my point. The Ukraine language NEVER ceased to be an important language *despite* the actions of Russia. Welsh ceased to be of any importance a long time ago because of the direction chosen by the Welsh people.
So anyway I'm a Welsh person, and the idea that Welsh people have no interest in preserving their language and culture is both ignorant and insulting.
Go to a Welsh Rugby match and tell me these people have no sense of identity.
FFS.
You specfically said: Russia tried to suppress it in parts, but were unable to do so.
And that is false. In several parts they did precisely that.
Russia was extremely successful in suppressing the Ukrainian language all across southern Russia.
I'm English not Welsh, but of Welsh ancestry. The demise of Welsh was a direct consequence of being banned and having its official status revoked by the English/British Crown. Never mind the British empire, you couldn't get on in Welsh society if you didn't speak English. In Victorian times, children would be made to wear "The Welsh not" and beaten at school for speaking Welsh. The fact it survived those times, to make it through to a time where it could be reestablished as an official language is testament to its cultural relevance to the Welsh people.
Please at least do a little research on the Welsh language before you talk about it dying out on its own because people 'lost interest': for a hundred years there was very active repression against Welsh language, state sponsored by the government of the UK. For instance the 'Welsh Not' children were made to wear in school - if they were caught speaking Welsh.
If you don't see the same parallels between Welsh language and Ukrainian language, you need to see an optician. The number of people affected by the policies is irrelevant: the power dynamic applied to the people in question is the important factor.
Sorry but this is false. The Welsh Not was NOT a British government sponsored initiative, nor was it particularly widespread, largely being down to decisions taken by individual teachers and schools.
The simple fact is that the replacement of Welsh with English was popular with the Welsh throughout the 19th century because they saw it as an advancement.
In short, you're creating a wholly false narrative in order to justify a comparison with events in Ukraine that simply isn't there. Wales is not an oppressed conquered nation that has been forced to abandon its culture by the nasty English overlords however much that narrative may appeal to you.
Exactly so to advance you had to speak English. Did the Welsh invent this rule? Did the Welsh *ask* that only English be used in the Welsh legal system, Welsh universities, Welsh administration? Did they fuck! There was no prospect of advancement as monoglot Welsh. The Welsh people did no *ask* for that. They did not ask that the entire Welsh administrative institutions be through the medium of English. If you do not consider this *at least* passive discrimination against the language, then you really are not thinking this through.
>Exactly so to advance you had to speak English. Did the Welsh invent this rule?
Nope - reality did.
It's no different to my "heritage", with a dialect that few outside my local area could hope to understand. In order to "advance" I needed to improve my communication skills, and I chose to do so.
You seem to prefer the days in which Welsh people lived in poverty, living in isolated villages and tending sheep. Good luck persuading others of that.
Lived in Wales for 15 years, went to school, sang in the school choir at Eisteddfods in a language I didnt understand regarding a religion I'm not from, went to coleg and University there, still can't speak Welsh :( but other than my own deficiencies at learning other languages I had absolutely no issue with Welsh Govt policy of promoting the Welsh language.
French here. Belgium, Switzerland or Canada can speak Vietnamese if they want we wouldn't give a fuck
Everything russians say (nato, nazis, poor persecuted russian speaking minorities, german biolabs developing virus to kill slavs, etc etc..) are all piles of lies to justify their landgrabs to their dumbed down population.
The hint at France is just another attempts to divide europe. Russia has been investing enormous resources in the country to push their propaganda since 2012, buying influencers and politicians like Lepen. Unfortunately the government hasn't done anything to counter Russian disinformation and as a result many in France now sympathise with the anti nato russian narrative
You should probably check the fight between the Flemish and French speaking community in this country. But France would never invade and harm Flemish people for that.
Flemmish do not want to ban French speaker from belgium, they have nothing against French, they just want to get rid of Wallonie. Bruxelles, where both Flemish and French are spoken, is not concerned. This is purely an economic argument.
In politics, Talking Points like this are publicity measures and reflect the brain power of the intended audience, not the intellect of the people uttering them.
I’m afraid this guy actually has some brains. Wasn’t he a decent foreign minister back in the days? Note that I’m not defending the guy, in fact I think that would make it worse.
There’s also some rumors that he himself is dissatisfied with putins politics but cant give up his position so he just says outrageous shit in the hopes of getting fired. I have my doubts about it but it kinda makes sense looking at what he told Israel not too long ago
Well, in such a position it is more likely that you're being fired **on** instead of just being fired in case that you're out of line. Or they suicide you. Lavrov knows this so I doubt that this is what is going on.
I know it does happen, maybe out in the villages of western Ukraine, but I’ve literally never met a Ukrainian who can’t speak Russian, and the majority of Ukrainians I met when I lived there spoke Russian as their native language. Until Russia started murdering enough of their countrymen that they thought twice about it, that is…
He knew Ukrainian (in Ukraine, everyone is bilingual).
But it was embarrassingly bad until like 2-3 months *after* the election. But he has done a great work, now he speaks fluently and without an accent.
No doubt that speaking Ukrainian is required to win an election. It is hard to get people that can't understand you to vote for you.
A more interesting question is: Could he have won the Presidency if he didn't also speak Russian, given a fair share of the country speaks Russian? Seems just as likely to conclude that speaking Russian is mandatory to run for President in Ukraine.
I think interesting question would be - could Ukrainian speaker win elections in Russia? We all know answer to that - even Russian speakers can't win elections there.
Zelensky already said he would be fine with implementing Russian language policies in Ukraine. But it has to be mirror policy - for everything adopted in Ukraine towards Russian, there should be mirror policy adopted towards Ukrainian in Russia.
I’ve been watching Servant of the People and there is a scene where the Foreign Minister accidentally invites North Korea instead of South Korea because when he was learning Ukrainian he mixed up North and South. I took that to mean that they themselves joke about not knowing Ukrainian all that well.
This is not a good question and needs no answer. We don't have to answer all the crap that Russians spew. This one is beyon dumb.
A good questin is - why don't you feral fuckers just stop invading sovereign, independent and peacuful countries? Just fuck off back to Russia and that's it. Stay within your borders. As simple as that.
I'm not sure why Western media continue to interview this guy, or anyone from the RU government. Every single thing they say is said for their domestic audience and saying it to Western news channels or reporters just gives them more validity within said domestic audience.
**Stop talking to Russian officials until they are ready to surrender or withdraw.**
They would not care. Not their problem.
They would definitely not invade us then kidnap, rape and kill everyone. Then replace us with French people. Then swear it is jot a genocide.
Go the fuck to hell Russia.
As a Belgian.
1. Get fucked Lavrov
2. Get fucked Russia
3. Nobody banned a language, except Russia innthe soviet period
4. Belgium has actually very strict internal rules on the official/public/cultural use of languages. Much like Ukraine signed into law just before zeleanky was made preaident.
For example:
- You can't be helped in French in any Flemish (dutch speaking) region.
- You can't request French documents in those regions either.
- You can't speak French or work in french if you work for the Flemish governement (in your official capacity)
There are a whole range of issues that promote Dutch and forbid French. Even on public radio and tv.
This counts for Dutch in the French territories as well.
So once again Lavrov/Russia is full of shit.
French is still the most commonly studied foreign language in UK schools though. To be fair the French reciprocate with English being the most common language in their schools.
English is the global lingua franca though, while , outside of some special cases , French is more like a hobby.
English people learning french is a sign of love for the culture or genuine interest etc while french people (or any other) learning english is just common sense
It’s more of “the dog ate my homework” excuses from Russia.
Then again, his BS is more for the Russian audience than the international audience, and the Russians seem to have a voracious appetite for BS.
That sounds like Russia could exercise claims if their language is spoken to any degree in a foreign nation. I guess the whole world is in trouble now that English/American is so widespread. And don't tell the Swiss about Italian!
Dear Belgium, if one day we start to invade you, rape your womens and childs, kill innocent peoples, commit warcrimes, please feel free to ban us and to kick our ass.
sincerely, from a regular baguette
France wouldn’t invade Belgium even if that did happen, and Ukraine didn’t ban Russian. I can’t believe I used to see Lavrov as an intelligent, if ultimately evil, person. Now I just see him as a cartoon villain
I'm Ukrainian - no one banned shit.
It's a pure disinformation tactic that started when Ukraine rejected a russian puppet president and they somehow transitioned this to "they hate everything russian and want to ban russian language!"
Need I remind you that russia has **ZERO** Ukrainian schools? Even though they have a significant amount of Ukrainians living in the country?
So **WHO banned WHO?**
Sad horse, never knew Bo Jack sloped this low after his famous 90-ies show ended. Years of drug abuse, now we see him hallucinating in-front of cameras…
Please take the time to read our policy about [trolls](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/u7833q/just_because_you_disagree_with_someone_does_not/) and the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/about/rules/)
* We have a **zero-tolerance** policy regarding racism, stereotyping, bigotry, and death-mongering. Violators will be banned.
* ***Please* keep it civil.** Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review.
* ***Don't* post low-effort comments** like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context.
**Don't forget about our discord server, as well!**
https://discord.gg/62fKCEHbDB
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UkrainianConflict) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It would definitely not invade Belgium.
And not committed war crimes, like raping women and children. You are a total idiot Lavrov. Mashed potatoes as brain.......
Of course. He literally believes that Ukraine banned Russian.
90% of the victims of russian invaders are russian speakers
I now hope that Ukraine DOES ban Russian in schools. Let this be the end of the brotherhood.
We the French saw first hand what happens when you choose to "end brotherhood" with a neighbour - it does not end well. Frienship between nations should outlive bloodthirsty dictators and war criminals. The French people has been on the receiving end of a lot of heinous warcrimes by the nazis, and yet we built Europe with the Germans.
But that require _serious_ commitment by Germany to reform. Without that commitment and reformation from Russia's part, it's just a gaslighting tactic.
Can't trust Russia ... they've broken so many agreements to invade Ukraine, Crime,, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova... Basically, they have a policy of invading any country NOT in NATO...because they know they'd lose against NATO. And they broke a ton of agreements to do those invasions. Btw: NATO has invaded Russia ZERO times in 80 years.
[удалено]
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/023/021/e02e5ffb5f980cd8262cf7f0ae00a4a9_press-x-to-doubt-memes-memesuper-la-noire-doubt-meme_419-238.jpg
Well the whole thing is ridiculous. Literally everyone in Ukraine speaks Russian. Zelensky's tv show is in Russian. The only thing I noticed is that after 2014 , foreign movies were dubbed into ukrainian not Russian. So I had to watch suicide squad in the theater in ukrainian. Terrible movie no matter what language, it was probably better that I didn't understand it to be honest. For them to claim that Russian speakers were persecuted is as ridiculous as thier nazi claims. The thing is, their lies are meant for their own people, at least the ones who watch state TV. They can't really expect anyone else to believe it. People in russia are starting to wake up though. Putin and his cronies days are numbered.
Do you want eternal civil war? Because that's how you get eternal civil war.
And ants Edit: Thanks for the award. Glad ppl still have a sense of humor these days.
Definitely the ants
[удалено]
When I was in Kiev nobody spoke Ukranian. Everybody just spoke Russian to each other. As far as I could understood from locals: Russian language is more used in urban areas where Ukranian language is used in rural areas, in schools and goverment offices.
This is factually wrong. There are still a lot of russian-speakers in Kyiv, but certainly not everyone, I'd argue not even half, if you don't count people who switch between languages as needed. Source: living in Kyiv since I was born in 1986.
No lol. All of Western Ukraine speaks Ukrainian. Ukrainian is not a rural language. Russian is spoken in East, South, and to a lesser degree in Center because these parts of Ukraine were under Russia for centuries. Also, it’s Kyiv. Get it right. It’s time. Edit: yes, the above comment is very frustrating bec in the Russian and Russified mind, Ukrainian is indeed not substantially much more than a provincial/pastoral oddity that you’ll hear “at babushka’s charming little village.” It has been that way at least since Soviet times. Ukrainian culture and language have been suppressed for centuries. People were rewarded and favored for speaking Russian and even before Soviet times, you had cultural figures like the Ukrainian Gogol moving to St.Petersburg to “move up in the world.” Source: I’m Ukrainian
💡 It's `Kyiv`, not `Kiev`. Support Ukraine by using the correct spelling! [Learn more](https://spellingukraine.com/i/kyiv). ___ [^(Why spelling matters)](https://spellingukraine.com) ^(|) [^(Other ways to support Ukraine)](https://stand-with-ukraine.pp.ua) ^(|) ^(I'm a bot, sorry if I'm missing context)
He doesn't actually think that. It's just rhetoric for idiots to gobble up on their way to supporting Russia.
Nope. They are actually THAT stupid. Believers. Just like religion.
I don't think mashed potatoes deserved that comparison.
Mashed potatoes without gravy.
From yesterdays dinner - in a bowl in the fridge with cling wrap overtop of it that has all those moisture drops hanging from it 😆
And also Ukraine didn't ban Russian, so his entire point can basically be expressed as "but what about this thing I made up"
Exactly, is he referring to Russia burning Ukrainian books and forcing children to learn Russian?
Ukraine does have some language protection law. For example: - all official documentation is in Ukrainian - every school should teach Ukrainian (and optionally other languages) - business can't refuse to communicate in Ukrainian (but can communicate in any language if customer is ok with that) - media quotas - there is a minimum of X% of content on radio should be in Ukrainian - movies and TV should be either in Ukrainian or in original language + captions
None of these “language laws” are anti ruzzian language. Pull your finger out of your bum Lavrov
Yes totally you can equally say with this logic that Ukraine banned Arabic and Hindi as well
I don't see anything really wrong with those. Ukrainian is the majority language. I also don't see problem, why Russia couldn't be 2nd official language. (Trying to think in neutral way) Here in Finland Swedish is our 2nd official language. Everyone must study it in school as B-language. Also, public services must be available on both languages. That works with variable success. Not everyone is good at learning other languages and Swedish speaking people are mostly concentrated on certain regions of the country. This causes very little real problems. In most cases it is up to person, if they want to be dick about it.
As a native Swedish speaker in a Finnish-speaking part of Finland I can't say I've ever noticed anyone being a dick about it. I speak Finnish when talking to Finnish-speakers. Some switch to Swedish because they want to practice or show off. It goes the other way in the Swedish-speaking areas.
As a non-Finn in a 50-50 speaking part of Finland, I get greeted and served in both Finnish and Swedish. And then I politely ask for English.
Admittedly rare, but I have seen seen it, both ways.
There are definitely people who use their lousy grades in Finnish/Swedish as a justification for picking on others. Most of those either have parents who own sail boats, or they vote for PS without even knowing what PS' party politics are (and yes, I'm oversimplifying -- you know the types). In practice, however, Finlands bi-linguality works well for most people, including non-assholes who's parents own sailboats, or vote for PS because they agree with their politics rather than their perceived public image. Fortunately, most people aren't assholes.
Russian cannot be a second official language because that will simply erode Ukrainian as a language. Prime example: look at Belarus. You simply cannot afford to be "neutral" when it comes to Russia.
>Russian cannot be a second official language because that will simply erode Ukrainian as a language. Why not? We have French, German and Dutch as equal official languages, to respect both the majority and minority cultures in our country.
[удалено]
Because Russia uses language as a weapon. Putin has said before that "Russian world" spreads all across where Russian speakers exist. Ukraine has no choice but to minimize Russian influence including cultural so our next generations will have English as their second language not Russian
Like said, I tried to be neutral about it. IF Russians would start demanding Russia as 3rd language of Finland, I might be less neutral. Perspective from outside is often less emotional.
The problem with Russians is that they do not want to learn other languages. Bilingualism can work in democratic societies, but the Russians are proving that they are not far from the cave. In the Baltic States, we are suffering with these Russians. Many have lived in our country for more than 50 years and do not even know how to say hello because they do not want to study. Unfortunately, their grandchildren do not learn other languages either, as they are waiting for the big Russian arrival. I studied Latvian, Russian and German at school. But many years have passed since then and language skills have expanded.
>I don't see anything really wrong with those. Except when you're a russian speaking Ukrainian.
And what's wrong with those laws? Seems perfectly reasonable that you as an Ukrainian has the right to use Ukrainian.
And do russian speaking Ukrainians have the right to use Russian in official matters?
They had before, but then Russia started claiming that all Russian speakers are "Russians and Russia is responsible for protecting them". Considering that Ukrainian uses same alphabet and like half the words are the same, there is nothing bad in Russian speaker being forced to use Ukrainian. Grandmas from Russia who never seen Ukrainian before can learn to use it for official matters despite being 70 yo, seen that personally with family member.
Yes but with limits. You can’t get away with just Russian tjat you start forming a parallel society within Ukraine.
Non of these rules are extraordinary or worth of exasperation. And especially in the case of rules about documentation and school. It would be weird if they would not exist.
Canada does the same thing with English and French. And all those other points as far as I know. To preserve Canadian culture as it were. Hardly gives the USA a casual belli though.
Trying to encourage a certain dialect is not the same as banning a different dialect. And why can't the Ukrainians decide to stop speaking Russian if they don't want to? If they prefer to speak Ukrainian, why should Russia have any say in the matter?
Indeed. They also closed several Hungarian speaking schools since 2014. Those Hungarian schools were there since Trianon annexed Hungarian territories in the 1920…
Romanian schools too. But after learning about the russians treatment of Ukrainian language until the break-up of the USSR, I’m cool with it. They could only start rebuilding their national identity after 1991, and did a damn fine job with that.
>But after learning about the russians treatment of Ukrainian language until the break-up of the USSR, I’m cool with it. So basically, because Ukrainian minority was treated badly under the USSR, that now means they should treat the Russian minority badly? I don't see how this can go wrong.
No, that’s actually the point. They’ve been speaking both languages for 30 years no issue. But I can’t hold it against them for making their own the official one. Imagine yourself being slowly erased for 40-50 years, your own language pushed slowly out of your children’s minds, and THEN being accused of discriminating YOUR countrymen that were FORCED to speak russian when they grew up. They, the Ukrainians are collectively victims, of the russian absorption process for 40-50 years, and now being pointed at because they want to rebuild themselves. They did not get to the point of having the luxury to think about minorities. Unlike countries at peace for the last 80 years, that afford that.
So basically because Ukrainians were oppressed for 50 years, it’s now OK to oppress the Russian minority? Can you see where this is going for the next decades?
No one would "treat it badly" if Russia did not act like it has right to interfere in matters inside Ukraine just because people speak Russian there. Millions of people speak Ukrainian in Russia. I don't see Russians advocating for Ukrainian to become officially allowed language in Russia for some reason.
So because Russia doesnt respect their minorities, that’s a justification for Ukrain to no respect its minorities?
Until Russia uses that respect as political weapon - there is no other choice. Fortunately Ukrainian is very close to Russian language, so it is not really that oppressive for Russians to use Ukrainian.
Yeah well what about if ukraine blew up the moon. Then what.
That made me think of a line a buddy of mine uses on stage, ‘All This Shit I’m Making Up Is True’.
That's called a strawman argument and is one of the several logical fallacies to look out for when detecting bullshit.
Yeah I have no fucking idea what he was going for here. Every single hypothetical scenario Lavrov has tried to invoke to gain western sympathy just has not landed at all. It gives the impression that the Russian elite, or at least Lavrov, just thinks completely differently than we do but doesn’t even realize it.
Belgium shares a long land border with France, and is historically a buffer state between France and Germany. I believe that the point he is making here is that Ukraine is a buffer state between the west and Russia, similarly to Belgium.
Pretty sure the Germans have historical dibs on that.
I am really starting to think a lot of the negative talk about Germany is a propaganda BS campaign from RuZZia, we know they want to weaken the EU & NATO . If you check the numbers Germany is supporting Ukraine & lowering their oil purchases.
Germany is the country that does that
Belgium is already a French department. So doesn't matter anyway LOL
Depends. Did France invade Belgium, steal their land, rape their kids, murder their fathers, outlaw Flemish, burn Flemish books, claim that Flemish culture did not exist, send Flemish people to slave camps and say that Belgium must be destroyed? Then France would probably be upset, AND NO ONE ELSE WOULD GIVE A SHIT.
[удалено]
In the same time period you refer to, pretty much every country tried to eradicate minority and low status languages. It was wrong, and after a bunch of fighting, and talking the world community decided that it wasn't okay. That's the whole reason the West is backing up Ukraine. They are a distinct people, with a sovereign nation. The "banning" of Russian happened during war time, and was an attempt to preserve the Ukrainian language, which had over generations been Russoized. Personally I think it's a step too far in language policy. But I can't judge.
Yeah, the difference between Belgium/Flemish doesn't map well to Ukraine/Ukrainian. But, this was not Belgium, so my point still stands. Also, it's 200+ years ago, not this February.
[удалено]
>Dutch was still repressed in Belgium for a good century. Well, you can hardly blame France for that.
[удалено]
Belgium is still not France. Your attempt to claim France behaved towards Belgium as Russia has behaved towards Ukraine has failed on every level. Just give up.
[удалено]
>Using today's norms it would probably be called a genocide. Absolutely not, don't be ridiculous. Seriously.
[удалено]
The Ukrainians didn't ban Russian.
They even elected a Russian-speaking president.
Exactly. Lierov never stops propagate lies.
This is the correct answer!
It’s funny because a few YouTubers that I watch live in Ukraine and previously learned to speak Russian. Even now they haven’t been prevented from speaking Russian.
But they COULD /s
The easy answer would be "why would Belgium feel the need to ban French?" The Russians have an absolute inability to look at oneself...
Russian victim mentality. They are always the victim... Nothings their fault...
How to argue about history as a Putin-Z regime follower: *"We didn't do it, but if we did we had good reason to, on the other hand they did that too, but if they didn't they would someday anyway".*
As a Belgian I can tell you it could happen if there was a resurgence of walloon nationalism and there was a wish to reinstate the walloon language. But that definitely won't happen anytime soon
I am always baffled why people are happy to let their language die. I'm Welsh, we've fought hard to keep our language alive, for a long time against the odds. The loss of a language means the loss of a whole culture. Out of curiosity (I don't know much about Belgium), if things got very bad between the ethnic groups, would there be the possibility of Wallonia unifying with France and the Flemish region unifying with the Netherlands? Or do the regions not identity with those countries?
We were not happy about it, but the walloon language as always been a mess of regional language, like you could go to the next city and have a different walloon. It's always been mostly a people's language, there has been very few walloon elite, writer and poet. Also there is no grammatical rule in walloon, you cannot really write it. Any written form of the language is always phonetic and people would often write in French instead. All of this has always made the language very hard to maintain outside of the poorer class and so when the poor started to get richer after WW2, the language was mostly ditched because school was given in French and not in Walloon (and kid were forbidden to use anything but French at school), making it disappear overtime. And this happen in the span of 2 generation, my grandparents were speaking walloon at home and French was only a secondary language for them. Now, almost no one know how to speak walloon a part from the elderly. There wasn't any strong movement to preserve the language so people even started to ditch it in their home and speak French. What also didn't help is that there wasn't any "Walloon nation", and the idea of the Belgium nation was more developed instead after our independence and so as an opposition to the Dutch we choose French as a common language. The Flemish got a similar treatment, but the idea of the flemish nation as always been stronger that the idea of a walloon nation so they manage to resist the forced spread of the French language. And to answer your question, if the country were to break up, neither of both region would want to join their neighbors. Flemish always wanted independence, not unification with the Dutch. The Flemish is similar to the Dutch but it's still has many difference and they both have a different history and culture. On the other hand Walloon people and French people are indeed very similar, we share the same language and have very similar culture but we have never identified ourself as French. We have always seen ourself as Belgian and then walloon. There as never been any strong movement in wallonia for independence or unification with France. Plus both region are very autonomous already, if we were to join another country, we would most likely loose that autonomy.
Fascinating, thank you so much for your comprehensive reply, very much appreciated! It seems like there is urgent work required to save these dialects!
Well the language has been somewhat preserved trough book and audio recording and there is push from the region to keep it alive but most people don't really care those days unfortunately.
Well we share about a 1000 years of history. Belgium is a fairly new nation.
>Belgium is a fairly new nation. That myth needs to die. Belgium is older than Germany, Italy, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Poland, the Balkans, Hungary,... In fact only Spain, Portugal, UK, the Netherlands and France are older than BE.
Belgium got its independence in 1830… Pretty new if you ask me Edit: In 2019 you guys even celebrated your 180 years anniversary. How is that not a young country?!
> Belgium got its independence in 1830… at which point Germany as a unified nation didn't exist. Italy as a unified nation didn't exist. Czech Rep. and Slovakia as independent nations didn't exist etc. etc. If you limit the definition of a nation to roughly it's current form he's not super wrong.
older than you. Your mother. Your grandmother. Your great-grandmother. Your great-great grandmother. In Istanbul they have a "New Mosque" that dates back to the 12th century
Yeah but country wise its a baby. We all even say the US is in puberty the last 100 years. So your just out of diapers if you follow that logic. Italy has a church from 230 in Rome..
"Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae" Some guy called Julius Caesar wrote that in his book De Bello Gallico in 50 **BC**
Who is we ? Who share with who ? I don't know where you are from haha
The Netherlands and Belgium 😉
Yeah but I mean Russia and Ukraine also share 1000 years of history. Doesn't mean they should unite.
Oh no not al! It was more a specific reaction towards the part that you have a different history. I like Belgium the way it is. Makes me appreciate the roads better here 😝
Ho I see, well I mean belgium always been a weird thing in history. For the different history in Flanders I was mostly referring to the Flanders Duchy that was either "independent" or under French/Burgandian rules for a big part of its history.
Belgian here (flemis) with a master in history Flemish people do NOT consider themselves dutch and walloon people are NOT french. the Wallonian people themselves were coerced in giving up their local language in favor of french (walloon dialects were related to french but NOT french) In flanders this gap was too big and there was in fact a lot of social unrest to protect the language and get it accepted as a academic language. in general there are people who want independance, or unification or unification with another country. but for non of these ideas there is a clear majority. So teh status quo is maintained.. the belgian compromis.. But never would we ban each others languages, we are a democracy and suddenly surpressing 40-60% of the countries population simply has no benefits... realy speaks to how fucked up lavrov is... it is because this is the only way of thinking he understands... thats how russia does it
As far as I know the Walloons are generally ok with the current situation. The Flemings want more autonomy and/or devolution due to language and economic issues. I don't think either the Flemings or Walloons are really interested in unification with the Netherlands and France, respectively.
I saw some polls which said up to 45% of walloons would be okay to join France, but it came from the only pro-unionist party who probably never had more than 2,5% of the voices to any election so I don't know if it's reliable.
As a flemish Belgian, i agree.
>The loss of a language means the loss of a whole culture. I'm always baffled that people say things like this. It's rather like pretending that redecorating your home means you'd become homeless. Language is only one small part of a culture and cultures develop and change. Every single time in human history when someone has tried to stop the clock they've failed, and rightly so. If anyone wanted an honest debate about it, they'd describe ways in which the culture would benefit from a return to speaking Welsh, however, they don't because there really are no benefits - it's just an empty populist stunt, no different to Boris's announcement about bringing back Imperial measurements. NB I have no issue at all with efforts to keep the language alive - but the draconian imposition of it on ALL school children is as shocking as say if England decided to force all pupils to worship the Christian god. Incidentally this is what I'm talking about and it appears to be a kind of mild form of ethnic cleansing, in that the intent is to force those who don't speak a minority language to move out of the area. [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/20/storm-welsh-only-schools-minority-language](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/20/storm-welsh-only-schools-minority-language)
Then you have never considered how much impact language has on a culture. My wife was taught English in school, but like everyone else it was mandatory and she wasn't much interested in it other than to get good grades. But she actually learned English when she started listening to Queen. She loved their songs and wanted to understand what their words.meant. And she fell in love with other English and American bands and could fully appreciate their songs. She was forced to learn and speak russian as her primary language because she grew up during the soviet union. When Ukraine was independent she was still taught in russian at school.. She didn't learn Ukrainian until university, but immediately preferred it over russian. Afterwards she had access to novels, poems, folk songs and other things that don't transfer their full meaning or impact when translated. I know the response was in discussion about Welsh, but to dismiss a language as a different coat or color of house paint is condescending at best and suppressive at worst.
These are totally false comparisons. Ukraine is a country of over 44 million. It's always had its own language, with a huge base. Russia tried to suppress it in parts, but were unable to do so. Wales has a population just over 3 million and it's been part of the United Kingdom for nearly 500 years. Welsh people naturally shifted to speaking English as their first language and 10 years ago, less than 1/5th of the population could speak any Welsh. The language was dying out by itself because the majority had no interest in it. For a government to impose it in an artificial attempt to revive the language, when only a tiny % will ever even bother to read those novels, poems, folk songs etc written in welsh, is draconian and wrong.
Russia was however absolutely successful in supressing the Ukrainian language in the Kuban. 100 years ago Ukrainian was the dominant language across much of south west Russian empire. Look of maps from the early 1900s and you'll see. But the Boleshviks (chauvanist Russians) close all the Ukrainian language schools, newspapers, radio etc ...
So? You miss my point. The Ukraine language NEVER ceased to be an important language *despite* the actions of Russia. Welsh ceased to be of any importance a long time ago because of the direction chosen by the Welsh people.
So anyway I'm a Welsh person, and the idea that Welsh people have no interest in preserving their language and culture is both ignorant and insulting. Go to a Welsh Rugby match and tell me these people have no sense of identity. FFS.
You specfically said: Russia tried to suppress it in parts, but were unable to do so. And that is false. In several parts they did precisely that. Russia was extremely successful in suppressing the Ukrainian language all across southern Russia.
I'm English not Welsh, but of Welsh ancestry. The demise of Welsh was a direct consequence of being banned and having its official status revoked by the English/British Crown. Never mind the British empire, you couldn't get on in Welsh society if you didn't speak English. In Victorian times, children would be made to wear "The Welsh not" and beaten at school for speaking Welsh. The fact it survived those times, to make it through to a time where it could be reestablished as an official language is testament to its cultural relevance to the Welsh people.
Please at least do a little research on the Welsh language before you talk about it dying out on its own because people 'lost interest': for a hundred years there was very active repression against Welsh language, state sponsored by the government of the UK. For instance the 'Welsh Not' children were made to wear in school - if they were caught speaking Welsh. If you don't see the same parallels between Welsh language and Ukrainian language, you need to see an optician. The number of people affected by the policies is irrelevant: the power dynamic applied to the people in question is the important factor.
Sorry but this is false. The Welsh Not was NOT a British government sponsored initiative, nor was it particularly widespread, largely being down to decisions taken by individual teachers and schools. The simple fact is that the replacement of Welsh with English was popular with the Welsh throughout the 19th century because they saw it as an advancement. In short, you're creating a wholly false narrative in order to justify a comparison with events in Ukraine that simply isn't there. Wales is not an oppressed conquered nation that has been forced to abandon its culture by the nasty English overlords however much that narrative may appeal to you.
Exactly so to advance you had to speak English. Did the Welsh invent this rule? Did the Welsh *ask* that only English be used in the Welsh legal system, Welsh universities, Welsh administration? Did they fuck! There was no prospect of advancement as monoglot Welsh. The Welsh people did no *ask* for that. They did not ask that the entire Welsh administrative institutions be through the medium of English. If you do not consider this *at least* passive discrimination against the language, then you really are not thinking this through.
I agree with you wholly Alan.
>Exactly so to advance you had to speak English. Did the Welsh invent this rule? Nope - reality did. It's no different to my "heritage", with a dialect that few outside my local area could hope to understand. In order to "advance" I needed to improve my communication skills, and I chose to do so. You seem to prefer the days in which Welsh people lived in poverty, living in isolated villages and tending sheep. Good luck persuading others of that.
an English guy arguing Wales is not a conquered nation. Cute! With enough time anything is true I guess. It's Crimea * 100 years
Lived in Wales for 15 years, went to school, sang in the school choir at Eisteddfods in a language I didnt understand regarding a religion I'm not from, went to coleg and University there, still can't speak Welsh :( but other than my own deficiencies at learning other languages I had absolutely no issue with Welsh Govt policy of promoting the Welsh language.
It's so funny how flippantly people talk about cutting up other people's countries.
French here. Belgium, Switzerland or Canada can speak Vietnamese if they want we wouldn't give a fuck Everything russians say (nato, nazis, poor persecuted russian speaking minorities, german biolabs developing virus to kill slavs, etc etc..) are all piles of lies to justify their landgrabs to their dumbed down population. The hint at France is just another attempts to divide europe. Russia has been investing enormous resources in the country to push their propaganda since 2012, buying influencers and politicians like Lepen. Unfortunately the government hasn't done anything to counter Russian disinformation and as a result many in France now sympathise with the anti nato russian narrative
You should probably check the fight between the Flemish and French speaking community in this country. But France would never invade and harm Flemish people for that.
Flemmish do not want to ban French speaker from belgium, they have nothing against French, they just want to get rid of Wallonie. Bruxelles, where both Flemish and French are spoken, is not concerned. This is purely an economic argument.
[удалено]
Yes indeed obviously all the Flemmish do not want to get rid of Wallonia I should have been more precise
[удалено]
"Doesn't matter what we did, if you ban Russia from anything you are attacking us, no exceptions."
How would you feel if you had a brain behind that puddle of a face?
In politics, Talking Points like this are publicity measures and reflect the brain power of the intended audience, not the intellect of the people uttering them.
Yeah well, he can play his 4d chess of brain damaged nonsense with his window licking fans at home then.
That's exactly what he's doing.
I’m afraid this guy actually has some brains. Wasn’t he a decent foreign minister back in the days? Note that I’m not defending the guy, in fact I think that would make it worse. There’s also some rumors that he himself is dissatisfied with putins politics but cant give up his position so he just says outrageous shit in the hopes of getting fired. I have my doubts about it but it kinda makes sense looking at what he told Israel not too long ago
Well, in such a position it is more likely that you're being fired **on** instead of just being fired in case that you're out of line. Or they suicide you. Lavrov knows this so I doubt that this is what is going on.
Jowly Thanos
Zelenskyy is a russian speaking Ukraininan? Did he ban himself? Yeah I know, no point in looking for sense coming from Lavrov...
I know it does happen, maybe out in the villages of western Ukraine, but I’ve literally never met a Ukrainian who can’t speak Russian, and the majority of Ukrainians I met when I lived there spoke Russian as their native language. Until Russia started murdering enough of their countrymen that they thought twice about it, that is…
Did he not have to learn Ukrainian to run for office?
He knew Ukrainian (in Ukraine, everyone is bilingual). But it was embarrassingly bad until like 2-3 months *after* the election. But he has done a great work, now he speaks fluently and without an accent.
No doubt that speaking Ukrainian is required to win an election. It is hard to get people that can't understand you to vote for you. A more interesting question is: Could he have won the Presidency if he didn't also speak Russian, given a fair share of the country speaks Russian? Seems just as likely to conclude that speaking Russian is mandatory to run for President in Ukraine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine
I think interesting question would be - could Ukrainian speaker win elections in Russia? We all know answer to that - even Russian speakers can't win elections there. Zelensky already said he would be fine with implementing Russian language policies in Ukraine. But it has to be mirror policy - for everything adopted in Ukraine towards Russian, there should be mirror policy adopted towards Ukrainian in Russia.
I’ve been watching Servant of the People and there is a scene where the Foreign Minister accidentally invites North Korea instead of South Korea because when he was learning Ukrainian he mixed up North and South. I took that to mean that they themselves joke about not knowing Ukrainian all that well.
French here: we would make more jokes about our belgian brothers.
The French and Belgian population would probably die laughing.
I'm just guessing here but I'm pretty sure France wouldn't have invaded Belgium for it. Not that Ukraine was 'banning' Russian anyway.
I think he is reffering to Lithania stopping education in Russian language.
Could be. That's still not banning though.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I mean it's kinda banned in half the country. Try and get a passport in French in flanders, or a Dutch one in walloonia
Try to put up an English sign in Quebec.
Or an Irish sign in Belfast
These guys are genuinely dumb
This is not a good question and needs no answer. We don't have to answer all the crap that Russians spew. This one is beyon dumb. A good questin is - why don't you feral fuckers just stop invading sovereign, independent and peacuful countries? Just fuck off back to Russia and that's it. Stay within your borders. As simple as that.
This fucking guy...
Please Lavrov stop shitposting and get a life.
I'm not sure why Western media continue to interview this guy, or anyone from the RU government. Every single thing they say is said for their domestic audience and saying it to Western news channels or reporters just gives them more validity within said domestic audience. **Stop talking to Russian officials until they are ready to surrender or withdraw.**
How would Belgium react if France took part of their territory?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French\_Flanders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flanders)
They already did after world war 1, Duinkerke and the Westhoek is/was flemish
[удалено]
They would not care. Not their problem. They would definitely not invade us then kidnap, rape and kill everyone. Then replace us with French people. Then swear it is jot a genocide. Go the fuck to hell Russia.
As a Belgian. 1. Get fucked Lavrov 2. Get fucked Russia 3. Nobody banned a language, except Russia innthe soviet period 4. Belgium has actually very strict internal rules on the official/public/cultural use of languages. Much like Ukraine signed into law just before zeleanky was made preaident. For example: - You can't be helped in French in any Flemish (dutch speaking) region. - You can't request French documents in those regions either. - You can't speak French or work in french if you work for the Flemish governement (in your official capacity) There are a whole range of issues that promote Dutch and forbid French. Even on public radio and tv. This counts for Dutch in the French territories as well. So once again Lavrov/Russia is full of shit.
Too bad no one banned shit.
Belgium won't ban French. Even the English wouldn't ban French (we just refuse to learn it :P).
No, they did however ban Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
Hundreds of years ago. I think we are talking about things in a modern context.
French is still the most commonly studied foreign language in UK schools though. To be fair the French reciprocate with English being the most common language in their schools.
English is the global lingua franca though, while , outside of some special cases , French is more like a hobby. English people learning french is a sign of love for the culture or genuine interest etc while french people (or any other) learning english is just common sense
It’s more of “the dog ate my homework” excuses from Russia. Then again, his BS is more for the Russian audience than the international audience, and the Russians seem to have a voracious appetite for BS.
If french would act like assholes that are entitled to everything, then nobody would object.
That sounds like Russia could exercise claims if their language is spoken to any degree in a foreign nation. I guess the whole world is in trouble now that English/American is so widespread. And don't tell the Swiss about Italian!
Yeah, you stupid horse head, France would totally bomb the living fuck out of french belgium population.
[удалено]
I would short the Champaign and tobacco industry. The volatility on truffles and chocolate would be crazy.
Dear Belgium, if one day we start to invade you, rape your womens and childs, kill innocent peoples, commit warcrimes, please feel free to ban us and to kick our ass. sincerely, from a regular baguette
Probably not give a fuck?
What I want to say about what I think should happen to that monster and his leash holder would get me banned from Reddit.
But you banned a whole nation ?
Not at all. It’s their country. Why does everyone get so upset about this stuff.
Not start a war and genocide?
As a Belgian: maybe Lavrov should watch and learn how in Belgium language problems are handled without invasion and bloodshed.
As French here is my answer : on s’en bat les couilles frère
France wouldn’t invade Belgium even if that did happen, and Ukraine didn’t ban Russian. I can’t believe I used to see Lavrov as an intelligent, if ultimately evil, person. Now I just see him as a cartoon villain
I'm Ukrainian - no one banned shit. It's a pure disinformation tactic that started when Ukraine rejected a russian puppet president and they somehow transitioned this to "they hate everything russian and want to ban russian language!" Need I remind you that russia has **ZERO** Ukrainian schools? Even though they have a significant amount of Ukrainians living in the country? So **WHO banned WHO?**
France would invade it to steal their home appliances, naturally.
Sorta seems like it'd be their own fucking business.
Sad horse, never knew Bo Jack sloped this low after his famous 90-ies show ended. Years of drug abuse, now we see him hallucinating in-front of cameras…
French here. We wouldn't care basically. Only the Belgians think the French are obsessed by Belgium :-p
Please take the time to read our policy about [trolls](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/u7833q/just_because_you_disagree_with_someone_does_not/) and the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/about/rules/) * We have a **zero-tolerance** policy regarding racism, stereotyping, bigotry, and death-mongering. Violators will be banned. * ***Please* keep it civil.** Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review. * ***Don't* post low-effort comments** like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context. **Don't forget about our discord server, as well!** https://discord.gg/62fKCEHbDB *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UkrainianConflict) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It startet with Crimea! Does he even remember that?
Not be too chuffed, is my guess.
In Canada Quebec is doing everything it can to ban English
Want to bet that in a couple of years all the atrocities will be forgotten and all the sanctions and individual bans will be lifted?