DISINFO: Ukraine has always been Russian, at least a half of it
SUMMARY
Ukraine has always been Russian, at least a half of it. A large number of so-called Russian Ukrainians live in Ukraine – people who have Russian roots, consider themselves Russian and speak Russian. “Russian Ukrainians” make up, if not the majority, then half of the country’s population.
RESPONSE
According to a poll conducted in 2017 the number of Ukrainian citizens who consider themselves Ukrainians by nationality is 90.6% of the population, Russian - 6.3%. A recent poll, refererad to in the media states:
For comparison, it is worth citing data on the ethnic composition of the population of Ukraine according to the censuses of 1989 and 2001: Ukrainians - 72.7% and 77.8%, respectively, Russians -22.1 and 17.3%, others - 5.2 % and 4.9%.
If we look at history we can also find many examples showing that Kyiv existed before Moscow, and Ukraine before Russia. Kievan Rus was in existence and history books long before Russia, and hundreds of years before Moscow, and as this scholarly debunk points out, there were even clear linguistic differences as early as the 14th century.