Odesa weighs Russian language ban in arts amid wartime identity debate

Odesa, Ukraine's third-largest city and a place where Russian has long been the language of daily life, faces a decision this week that cuts to the heart of what it means to be Ukrainian in wartime. The city's council is considering a proposal to ban Russian-language content from public spaces—music in the streets, books in libraries, performances in state-run venues, and even signage in shops and cafes. It is a striking move in a city where the vast majority of residents speak Russian as their first language, where the literary and musical traditions are steeped in Russian culture, and where the war itself is being fought partly by soldiers for whom Russian is their native tongue.

The proposal builds on restrictions already imposed by national law. Ukraine declared Ukrainian its sole state language in 2019, requiring it in education, public services, and customer-facing work. But Odesa's new measure would go further, effectively erasing Russian from the public sphere entirely. Books would be removed from library displays. The old Odesa songs—pieces known across the former Soviet Union—would fall silent on the streets. Russian-language works by Ukrainian composers and performers would join those by Russian citizens in the ban. Similar policies already exist in Kyiv and some other cities, but Odesa's proposal carries particular weight because of the city's Russian-speaking character and its cultural significance.

The argument for the ban rests on a particular reading of history and power. Artem Kartashov, a lawyer advising local authorities on what officials call the "decolonisation" of Odesa, frames Russian as an instrument of domination. "The Russian language is a weapon of Russia," he says, and through it, he argues, Moscow has worked to undermine Ukrainian identity, especially among young people raised in Russian-speaking homes. The ban, in this view, is not suppression but liberation—a necessary step to reclaim what was lost under Soviet rule and to protect Ukraine's future. The removal of a statue of Catherine the Great from a central square in 2022, the renaming of streets to honour Ukrainian writers and activists, and the push to highlight pre-Russian elements of Odesa's history are all part of the same project.

But the proposal has provoked fierce resistance from those who see it differently. Borys Barsky, a comic actor and one of Odesa's most recognizable entertainers, argues that Russian is not reducible to Putin's politics. "Russian isn't the language of Putin, it's the language of Dostoyevsky and Bulgakov," he says. His theatre, the Mask, has already been fined for violations of existing language rules—a cafe sign bearing the Russian word for coffee, promotional materials in Russian. He calls the escalating restrictions "madness," and he poses a harder question: who truly benefits from turning Russian-speakers against Ukrainian-speakers when both groups love Ukraine? His answer is stark: only Putin.

That tension sits at the centre of Ukraine's language debate. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly cited alleged persecution of Russian-speakers as justification for his invasion. Ukraine's government, aware of this rhetorical trap, must navigate between asserting Ukrainian identity and avoiding the appearance of ethnic or linguistic discrimination. The stakes feel especially high in Odesa, a city targeted daily by Russian drone and missile strikes, where the war is not abstract but immediate.

Anna Nerush, Odesa's state-appointed language ombudswoman, acknowledges the psychological weight of the issue. For people who have survived occupation or imprisonment, she says, hearing Russian in public spaces can be genuinely traumatic. Yet she also recognizes the practical reality: the new proposal would not legally require private businesses to comply, but the pressure would be real. "All businesses interact in one way or another with local government," she told the BBC. "They rent premises, they need advertising permits." Compliance, in other words, would become a condition of doing business, even without formal sanctions.

The broader picture is complicated by generational and educational shifts. Many native Russian-speakers have switched to Ukrainian in recent years, particularly since the full-scale invasion in 2022. Photographer Natalia Mykhailenko, who leads tours highlighting non-Russian elements of Odesa's history, sees the language laws as essential to breaking free from colonial patterns. "We must understand we were a colony," she says. Yet anthropologist Anastasia Piliavsky, part of a group defending freedom of thought and speech, worries that the laws risk making Russian-speakers feel like second-class citizens. "Ukraine has been fighting for freedom," she notes. "The point of this war is not to be under authoritarian rule. That's what Russia has to offer. So when fines or the threat of being fired arrives, people start wondering: what are we fighting for?"

Pavlo Viktor, a physics teacher whose online lessons have reached millions worldwide, has found himself caught in the crossfire. Criticized for teaching in Russian, his first language, he later translated his videos into Ukrainian. When he suggested he would speak Russian to frightened children during missile attacks if that was their preference, he faced fresh criticism. His response is measured: he notes that about ten percent of Odesa's population currently speaks Ukrainian in the street, but believes that over time, through gentle encouragement rather than coercion, the balance will shift. "Ukrainianisation must be polite and soft," he says. The council's vote this week will signal whether Odesa agrees.