Highlight
According to the 2001 census, about 80 percent of the people in Donetsk speak Russian.
More than 85 percent of the people in Luhansk speak Russian
In Zaporizhia, Russian immigrants follow ‘Orthodox Christianity’ as their religion
Moscow, After months of Ukraine-Russia war, Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to announce the merger of four regions of Ukraine at a Kremlin ceremony on Friday. Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin has turned his eye to Ukraine and Belarus. It is significant that the Russian leaders are trying to calculate the benefits of war among their people, by including 15 percent of Ukraine on the territory of Russia. However, the presence of Russian-speaking people in these four Ukrainian provinces has also proved to be a major factor in their integration into Russia.
Donetsk and Luhansky
Of course, Ukraine claims Donetsk and Luhansk as its territory, but since 2014, these two regions have been fighting alongside Ukrainian government forces. The main reason for this is the influence of Russia in these areas. According to the 2001 census of Ukraine, about 80 percent of the people in Donetsk speak Russian. At the same time, more than 85 percent of the people in Luhansk use the Russian language. Due to the hold of the language, Russia has considerable influence in both the regions. Currently, Russia controls almost the entire Ukrainian Luhansk region, but only 60% of Donetsk is still occupied by the Russians.
Kherson
Kherson, located in the north of Crimea, was home to only ten million people before the war. In this region also the control of the Russian army is spread over almost the entire area. Ukraine has been under constant attack for several weeks to get back Kherson, which is geopolitically important for both countries. The Ukrainian military has been trying to periodically damage bridges on the Dnieper River in order to disrupt Russian supply lines in parts of the state and cut off logistical supplies to security forces. Even in Kherson, Russia is believed to have been largely successful in leaving its mark on the people.
zaporizia
Zaporizhia has become the center of discussion for the world after the fighting in the vicinity of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Russia controls nuclear plants and about 70% of the entire province, which is also extremely important for Ukraine from an energy point of view. About 57 percent of Zaporizhia’s people know the Russian language and most citizens follow the ‘Orthodox Christianity’ religion practiced in Russia.
‘Russification’
Before annexing the four provinces, Moscow had taken several steps to ‘Russify’ these regions. This process of Russification is most advanced in the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, where it has issued hundreds of thousands of Russian passports to residents since 2019 and almost completely replaced Ukraine’s hryvnia currency with the Russian ruble. While both currencies are in circulation in Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Additionally, in all four regions, Ukrainian TV and mobile phone networks have been replaced by Russian networks and channels. Now only Russian channels and telecommunications companies are allowed to operate in these areas. Also, in the process of making children Russian at heart, Putin has pressured schools teaching Ukrainian curriculum to adopt a new Russian curriculum. Now almost all schools in these regions teach according to the Russian curriculum.
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Tags: Russia Ukraine war
First Published: September 30, 2022, 18:07 IST
