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Languages by region in Ukraine

Ukraine is a conglomeration of different ethnicities each having different language groups. The West side is said to speak Ukrainian, and just 5 percent of the people speak Russian. The northwest territory (Galicia) has multiple ethnicities and languages.

The northwest territory (Galicia) has a complex history, but in the past century it belonged to Poland.

The area of Galicia refers to the region that came to Poland during the first partition in 1772. Two years later, Empress Maria Theresa issued a settlement patent to encourage immigration to the sparsely settled region. Her successor Emperor Joseph II issued a second patent in 1781 and added a Toleranzpatent promising religious toleration for Protestants. Germans from the Palatinate (Pfalz), Wurttemberg, and Bohemia responded, as did Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and others. Galicia was annexed to Poland in 1918. In 1939, it was divided between the Provisional Government of Warsaw and Ukraine, a division drawn with the modern geographical boundaries of Poland and Ukraine.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Austrian_Poland_(Galicia),_Austro-Hungarian_Empire_Genealogy

After the 2014 coup (known as the Maidan revolution), Ukraine voted to eliminate the Russian language from its official languages. Its Russian population saw that as the start of exclusion and persecution from a hostile Ukrainian government. Some of the easternmost provinces then declared their independence from Ukraine, and the Russian-speaking population in Crimea voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia.

To see a map of eastern Europe, look here:

https://mapofeurope.com/map-of-eastern-europe/

The civil war began in May of 2014. After 8 years, Ukraine gathered a large army to invade the breakaway Republics in the east. Russia then stepped in to protect them and guarantee their independence.

Russia is now clearly going to annex all the eastern and southern territory where Russian people live. Russia seeks to bring its Russian population back into Russia, where they can be protected properly. This plan also protects its military base in Crimea and gives Russia a warm water port in the Black Sea.

If Poland occupies (and later annexes) Galicia, Hungary and Romania may well take more pieces of Ukraine where their language groups dominate. Ukraine could be carved up once again and end up much smaller than before.

Ukraine should have followed the Minsk agreements (1 and 2) in earlier years. Likewise, in late March they should have kept the agreement made in Turkey. But London and Washington convinced them to break those agreements in exchange for military and financial help. They are now learning that the $40 billion in foreign aid from Washington is mostly lining the pockets of politicians and NGO’s.

Only $6 billion of this has actually been allocated to military equipment and training. Even this small amount is only to replace the equipment previously sent to Ukraine. Recall that $9 billion worth of equipment had been sent earlier—much of which was destroyed by Russian missiles as soon as it arrived.

That is why President Zelensky is so desperate in his appeals for help from the west. Western governments talk a lot, but in the end, they do not want to throw away their weapons toward a lost cause. To transport heavy weapons by land from western Ukraine to the east, where the fighting is taking place, is virtually impossible, now that Russia has destroyed the railroads.

The propaganda war will end when the Ukrainian army in Donbass surrenders or retreats. They are being steadily surrounded by Russian troops and subjected to heavy artillery fire that has reduced their numbers from 50,000 in February to just 15,000 today. When propaganda is exposed to the light of truth, whole armies become discouraged, knowing that they are not winning. That is the moment of truth when wars can end rather quickly.