Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told 60 Minutes Vladimir Putin’s biggest mistake was “to alienate millions of Ukrainians.”
We should not be focused on history; we should be focused on the future. And the future is the respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of the countries.
Public survey, regularly conducted in Ukraine, demonstrate that the number of Ukrainians who consider Russia as a safe neighbor, is decreasing every year. I think, this is the biggest mistake president Putin eve made in his life – he alienated millions of Ukrainians.
Ukraine is a bilanguage country. The language issue is politicized, but this is not an issue. President Putin continues to insist that his role is to defend Russian speakers in Ukraine or elsewhere in the world. In fact, many Ukrainian soldiers speak Russian and they do not need Putin’s defense!
Analysts and some Western governments fear that Putin may use language and the perceived mistreatment of ethnic Russians as a pretext for launching an all-out war on Ukraine.
As opinion polls demonstrate, at home, 23.9% of Ukrainians speak two languages: Ukrainian and Russian. In turn, only 27.3% of Ukrainians speak Russian in the family circle.
Ukraine’s MFA head Dmytro Kuleba at 2022 Munich Security Conference: key messages.
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