cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4252171

A standard lie that Russia has used since 2014 to try to justify its armed aggression against Ukraine has been the claim that Russians and Russian speakers were being subjected to intimidation or even persecution.

In fact, wherever Russia has seized control, it is Ukrainian speakers and the Ukrainian language itself that have come under attack. Efforts to eradicate education in Ukrainian began immediately in occupied Crimea, and within five years (at the latest), there were no schools offering education in Ukrainian. In the Russian proxy ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics’, the Ukrainian language was systematically eliminated from all areas of life (details here and here)

Russia was still pretending back in 2014, and largely hid behind paramilitary formations in occupied Crimea, or its proxy ‘republics’, rather than wielding open terror against those viewed as ‘too pro-Ukrainian’.