Ukrainians are the third largest people in the Russian Federation after Russians and Tatars. According to the 2010 census, 1,927,988 ethnic Ukrainians lived in the Russian Federation. In 2002, 1 million more Russians signed up as Ukrainians.
Where did a million Ukrainians go? “People are assimilating,” shrugs Serhiy Vinnik, Vice President of the World Congress of Ukrainians (WUC) for Russia and Central and Western Asia. Assimilation is not only linguistic, but also worldview, explains a member of the International Association of Ukrainianists , ethnologist Denis Chernienko . “In Russia, the vast majority of Ukrainians are oriented towards Russian socio-cultural standards, norms and values,” he states. “Nationality, if they are preserved, is rather out of habit.”
Anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in the Russian Federation has increased significantly after the Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbass. Leaders and well-known activists of the Ukrainian movement in the Russian Federation today are under constant surveillance by special services, with many of them “preventive conversations” are held, telephone conversations are tapped, mail is lustrated, etc.
This is exactly what happened to the head of another regional Ukrainian public organization and folk choir from the city of Khabarovsk, Natalia Romanenko. After visiting the Euromaidan and positive statements in support of it in social networks, troubles fell on the woman one after another: she was fired from her job, the premises where the choir rehearsals took place for many years were taken away, the team was no longer invited to festivals of national cultures, of which she has always been a regular participant this interesting and original choir. The prosecutor’s office opened a case against the Ukrainian activist, accusing her of embezzling money, and local Ukrainophobes even attacked her, pouring green paint on her new clothes on the central square of Khabarovsk with the exclamation: “This is for Novorossia, Banderovka!” .
On the night of October 13-14, 2015, Viktor Girzhov was removed from the Kiev-Moscow train by Russian border guards at the Bryansk-Orlovsky checkpoint and handed the FSB order to ban entry into the territory of the Russian Federation for a period of 5 years, and incriminated almost terrorist activities against the Russians and the Russian state. The most likely reason for the deportation is rather prosaic – defending the interests of Ukraine during political talk shows on central television channels and participating in the preparation of open statements in which Ukrainian organizations condemned the actions of the Russian authorities directed against Ukraine.
Another leader of the local Ukrainian community in Siberia, Volodymyr P., who does a lot of work to preserve and develop Ukrainian culture, traditions, spirituality in this important region (in whose economic development millions of Ukrainians took part), fearing persecution, takes part in forums held by both diaspora add-ons ─ UVKS and VKU, secretly, without registering, avoiding photo shoots. This once again testifies to the attitude of the Russian authorities towards the rights of national minorities in the Russian Federation, the rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens, the violation of relevant international conventions and the Russian Constitution.
Today in the Russian Federation there is not a single all-Russian newspaper for Ukrainians, there are no radio and television programs, and diaspora media do not have reliable sources of funding. Portal “Ukrainians of Russia”, which existed for six years, due to lack of necessary funds for its maintenance, stopped its work.
Until now, there has not been a system of Ukrainian educational work in Russia, there is not a single full-scale Ukrainian school or preschool children’s institution, and the attempt of the Ukrainian community of Moscow (in the metropolitan metropolis there is a quarter of the total number of Ukrainians in Russia ─ 254,000 people) together with the Embassy of Ukraine in The Russian Federation to create at least one Ukrainian class in the city runs into numerous bureaucratic obstacles from the Russian authorities.
The story around the Library of Ukrainian Literature in Moscow (BUL) causes great concern for the Ukrainian public in Moscow. The director of the only cultural institution of this kind in the Russian Federation, Natalya Sharina, has been under investigation for more than a year ─ she is charged with “inciting ethnic hatred” and “embezzlement”, and the institution itself, created by Ukrainians in Moscow, is disbanded, and the funds are transferred to the Library of Foreign Literature.
Things are also bad with issues of freedom of conscience for Ukrainians in Russia, who gravitate toward Ukrainian confessions. As reported in the media, a court decision was recently made to demolish the new Holy Trinity Church in Noginsk ─ the only one in Russia that belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and was created by the community on the basis of an old military barracks. The rector of the church, Metropolitan Adrian, his active assistant Father Mercury (Svyatoslav Skorokhod), together with his parish, are trying to defend the shrine, but in Russia this is very difficult to do ─ there are no laws, and such a thing as conscience is in great deficit.