Non-Russians Speak about Putin’s War Very Differently and More Bluntly when They Use Their Native Languages than When They Use Russian, ‘Novaya Gazeta Europe’ Investigation Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – Non-Russian speak about Putin’s war very differently and more bluntly and negatively when they use their native languages than when they use Russian, according Dalya Talanova, a data journalist for Novaya Gazeta Europe who oversaw a study of 800,000 comments on 21,700 channels of the VKontakte network.

            Overwhelmingly, she suggests, non-Russians when using Russian to make comments on VKontakte follow the conventions about Putin’s war that Moscow insists on; but when they use their native languages, they behave very differently (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/4303-«пусть-тяжелая-земля-станет-легкой»).

            At the same time, she makes clear that more than 90 percent of non-Russians commenting about the war use Russian rather than their native languages, a pattern which means that those who do use native languages have already made a political choice and that likely carries over into their evaluations of the war.

            Few of them use the euphemism “special military operation,” most call the war a war, and many introduce religious or ethnic terms which show how horrified they are by the conflict and its human costs. For these people, who live in republics from which the Kremlin drew so many soldiers, the war is personal; and they use their native languages to underscore that point.

            Talanova gives example after example of this pattern, an indication that non-Russians clearly feel that they can be far more honest in expressing their views and feelings when they use their native languages than when they use Russian, likely because Moscow monitors the non-Russian texts less closely – and non-Russians know that.