A Tension in Ukraine: To Speak Russian or Ukrainian?

Plus: Tucker Carlson, Ukraine, and me

May 02, 2023

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If Tucker Carlson truly wants a post-Fox transformation, I invite him to Ukraine. I say here he will find human excellence, fierce democracy, and freedom-lovers. But beyond all that he can also find something more basic: the facts.

BY JOE LINDSLEY | UKRAINIAN FREEDOM NEWS

LVIV—Tucker Carlson left Fox News. Why does this matter to me here in Ukraine? One: With the largest cable news audience in the U.S., he’s been consistently one of the biggest voices against Ukraine. Two: Tucker was one of the first people with whom I spoke with when I left Fox News in a Hudson Valley car chase at age 27.

Earlier this year, I was in Kharkiv, reporting as I have done every weekday of this war on Chicago’s WGN Radio. The Russians were striking the city nearly every other day. At the time, American friends often texted me saying they heard that Zelenskyy is a bad guy, that Ukraine is corrupt and undemocratic, that there’s no freedom of religion here—all things that Tucker Carlson said frequently on his show, number one in American cable news.

Reading these messages from Americans in comfort as I stood amid the awful nearby thud of Russian missiles, I was in a Kafka nightmare, a nation smothered not only with bombs but with lies! I’ve been in Ukraine since the pandemic started and I knew it as a free, clean, low-crime, cultured, self-organizing society where people value both innovation and tradition, where people speak freely but without shooting each other, and where hard work paid off. Ukraine was a success story.

And most especially now Ukraine is an inspiration: a society where people—and yes, Tucker, even President Zelenskyy—live every day with the type of courage and swagger portrayed in the Marvel and Top Gun movies red-blooded Americans so love.

Yet as Russia has sought to erase the pleasant reality of Ukrainian life, Tucker Carlson who speaks so strongly about freedom has routinely castigated Ukraine.

“You can’t say it enough,” he said two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion. “Ukraine is not a democracy. … In American terms, you would call Ukraine a tyranny.” As Russia rained rockets upon Ukraine, Tucker even spent a week broadcasting in neighboring Hungary, where he praised Putin’s friend Viktor Orban as a fighter for freedom and tradition.

But Tucker missed entirely the true “freedom and tradition” story next door in Ukraine—where people are literally fighting for these virtues.

To see what he missed, read the story at Poland’s TVP World.

To Speak Russian or Ukrainian?

There's a tension in Ukrainian society: As Russia attacks the country daily, many Russian speakers are choosing to speak Ukrainian, a language historically banned by Moscow. But many also keep speaking Russian, frustrating some.

"How long will this go on?" a tired woman on a train asked a tired soldier on a leave from the battlefield. They were sharing a train compartment; she was speaking in Russian.

"A while yet," said the tired soldier, politely, in Ukrainian. "But maybe you can help by starting to speak Ukrainain."

And who was the stranger in Lviv asking for directions in Russian and they proudly talking about Russian culture?

Plus: how are the words for "world" different in Ukrainian and Russian? And does this shed light on what Russians mean when they speak of a "Russian peace"?

We begin this broadcast with the music of Ukrainian group DakhaBrakha:

from Thursday 27 April, war day 428: Joe Lindsley’s Ukraine report on Chicago's @wgnradio with Bob Sirott, delivered every weekday since Russia's full-scale invasion.

Read the story at Poland’s TVP World.

COMING TOMORROW:

Today on the Bob Sirott show on WGN Radio, I spoke about the deaths near Bakhmut of my friends Canadians Kyle Porter, 27 and Cole Zelenko, 21, fighters of the International Legion, part of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade.

With Bob Sirott, I speak about the trading of tokens among warriors and volunteers here: as people who might never see each other again weave together a fellowship of good versus evil. In tomorrow’s newsletter we’ll share today’s broadcast.

See more about Kyle and Cole on Twitter.

—Joe Lindsley

Regular Resources:

Air-Raid Alert Map

State of the War Map: shows Russian positions and what Ukrainians have taken back; updated daily

“[It's something rare in our world of corporate and automated radio regular, real humanity.”

—Neil Steinberg, in the Chicago Sun-Times, on Joe Lindsley’s daily Ukraine reports with Bob Sirott of Chicago’s WGN Radio. We invite you to follow on YouTube.

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ABOUT US: Ukrainian Freedom News: The wild story—so far—of free people standing for democracy, faith, dignity

"Joseph Lindsley's reports are enlightening, frightening, heart-wrenchingly and poetically descriptive." —a regular listener to the daily report from Ukraine on Chicago's WGN Radio with Bob Sirott

“I just returned from three months in Ukraine. Not my first time there, and certainly not my last; a powerful experience for me personally, but I must say that JOE’s REPORTING, HIS INSIGHTS, and, OBVIOUSLY, HIS HEART, ARE SPOT-ON.” —Jim, a Telegram follower of Ukrainian Freedom News

American journalist Joe Lindsley, in Ukraine since 2020, leads the Ukrainian Freedom News team of Ukrainians and foreigners on a mission to share real talk and real life in war-time with the world. Every weekday since late February 2022, he has reported live from Ukraine on Chicago’s WGN Radio with host Bob Sirott. You can listen to all episodes at UkrainianFreedomNews.com or via our YouTube channel.

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UKRAINIAN FREEDOM NEWS

Truth to the World | Supplies to Ukraine

Joe Lindsley, Editor-in-chief
Vitalii Gulden, Creative Producer
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