There are infinitely less difference between Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians than, for example, between those Americans who live in California and Texas.
Source: I grew up in Ukraine
Source: I grew up in Ukraine.
I think you made an excellent point. I see both sides and have no horse in this race.
I know Russian on native level and have visited friends in Lviv. Sure it is possible for me with Russian language to understand some things and with what I know it would be very easy to LEARN Ukrainian, but I don't live among Ukrainians, so I can't understand 90% of anything when I am watching something on yt when Urainians start to talk in moiva. I think, that there is a bigger chance for Polish people to understand Ukrainians, that for speakers of Russian.
It looks like your observation applies to Russians, who are already living in Ukraine and have some grasp of Ukrainian.
Бере-менна can not even be explained by Slavic language, or Proto... Baltic, but it can be explained by Swedish language, where bear-men was clear purpose of Rus women.
2. All the survived early written texts of Rus are in Old Church Slavonic - very similar to Russian(and possibly others that were known as Ruthenian, but I have no knowledge of Ukrainian, Belorussian or Rusyn to judge that).
3. You and me are not going to decide the classification of languages, that are based purely on geographic distribution or in case of Rus languages(or as they are known to others - East Slavic) - common history being part of one nation and not based on similar ancestry.
> Russians do not have common ancestry in Proto-Slavic, because ancestors of Rus people in majority did not even speak Slavic languages
When historical-comparative linguists say "common ancestry", they mean common linguistic ancestry, not the genetic ancestry of the Slavic languages' speakers.
> All the survived early written texts of Rus are in Old Church Slavonic
This is not the case. The Novgorod birchbark letters that were excavated over the 20th century attest some early East Slavic, noticeably different from the Old Church Slavonic language that was borrowed into Russia/Belarus/Ukraine around the same time as a literary standard after the christianization of the region.
> You and me are not going to decide the classification of languages, that are based purely on geographic distribution
The distinctions "West Slavic", "East Slavic" and "South Slavic" aren't actually based on the geographic distribution. Rather, they are based on the isoglosses that set the Slavic languages apart from one another. The terms "East/West/South" for the basic post-Proto-Slavic isoglosses are used only because those isoglosses map roughly with those cardinal directions. Again, this is something covered in any basic textbook.
> Бере-менна can not even be explained by Slavic language, or Proto... Baltic, but it can be explained by Swedish language, where bear-men was clear purpose of Rus women.
No, беременна is a native Slavic word and not a Swedish borrowing; it goes back to the same root as беру. If it looks similar to a Swedish word, this is only because the Slavic languages and the Germanic languages both inherited the same Proto-Indo-European word. A detailed etymology for the Russian word can be found in Vasmer under the headword *беремя*.
Also I think you are confused about these terms in English, where Old Church Slavonic == Старославянский язык Church Slavonic == Церковнославя́нский язы́к
>The Novgorod birchbark letters that were excavated over the 20th century attest some early East Slavic, noticeably different from the Old Church Slavonic language
That is correct, however what I wrote was completelly different: "All the survived early written texts of Rus are in Old Church Slavonic."
Besides, they were neither early East Slavonic or even classified as modern East Slavic and they are not directly related to Russian as well. Many of those Slavic can be classified as early Western Slavic at best.
>No, беременна is a native Slavic word and not a Swedish borrowing It seems, that I was wrong in this one(as pregnancy in most of Slavic languages use different word, but I did not search further, where Bulgarians use similar word for pregnancy). Sadly, that also means that Old Church Slavonic replaced everything else.
"War with Russia" in which Ukrainian citizens fight against Ukrainian citizens. If you don't trust my word, just look at the lists of the latest prisoner swaps, not a single Russian citizen there. The war which has started with clearly unconstitutional use of military forces against its own citizens and in which the freshly installed government has targeted administrative buildings in the center of Lugansk with no armed rebels in it using a military plane (they have tried to launch a stupid fake about an exploded AC, but recently they have officially confirmed that it was indeed a warplane target).
Note that I do not deny Russian involvement in the Ukrainian civil war, but you do not call the Syrian civil war a "Syria-American war", do you? Foreign involvement in civil wars is more of a rule, not an exception.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVbe3vGOm1Q [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk2fYkPeWy4
>Girkin (Strelkov) himself takes responsibility of starting the war who is russian
While he indeed played a big role in the uprising (though I think he tends to oversell his role), the cause was strongly supported by simple folk. (Don't forget about the last line in my previous comment.) The videos from the early stages with simple people blocking unconstitutionally deployed military forces is a good supporting evidence for this statement. You can call them "brainwashed by Russian propaganda" all you want, but it does not change the fact.
I see the following reasons: political discussions can be extremely long, and in any case are frowned upon here, and the chance of finding irrational stubbornness for this subject even here is high. So... we're agreeing to disagree then.
But you can't overcome the truth no matter how loud you scream.
It's the Russia who ruin everything around them to gain power and control.
This broken superpower still can't accept its loss and apologize for all evil it has done. It disrespects the world and the truth.
Then argue what exactly is not true in my previous comment, not simply yell loudly about me spreading "Russian propaganda". Everything I wrote can be easily verified and fact checked. If you can not do that, then it's you, not me who got blinded by a propaganda machine.
Oh, and there was an “insurrection” in US Capital in case you didn’t notice.
The only difference is that the first one has a very strong external support while the second one does not and, luckily, failed quickly.