War in Ukraine: How Years of Russian Aggression Revived the Ukrainian Language
Why Putin's attacks on Ukrainian identity and culture united a historically divided nation
Dear reader, do you remember what you did on February 24th, 2022? In all likeliness, this day was nothing special to you. Perhaps you spent this Thursday working at the office, reading in a coffee shop, practising your favourite hobby or meeting up with your dearest friends; conducting normal civilian activities, like the good civilian I know you are.
But, for the 38 million inhabitants of Ukraine, the 24th of February was a day never to be forgotten: on that day, the Russian president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, decided to start a brutal invasion of their country.
Ukraine had been in conflict with their Russian neighbours since 2014, when the Crimean Peninsula and parts of the eastern Donbas region were occupied by Putin’s forces, but the atrocities which started on that infamous February day in 2024 were of a whole new level. Russian rockets rained down on every corner of Ukraine’s territory and armed forces poured across the long border between Ukraine and Russia, and also from the territory of Russia’s close ally: Belarus.
