According to official Ukrainian figures, around 8,000 Ukrainian military personnel and nearly 2,000 civilians are currently in Russian captivity. They are subjected not only to physical suffering but also to psychological and ideological pressure and the “Russian World” agenda – an instrument of Russian claims to power aimed to impose the Russian language, culture, and tradition.
In the new TraCe Policy Brief, Liudmyla Pidkuimukha draws on testimonies from the occupied territories and Russian detention facilities to examine how language and cultural symbols, as integral parts of the “Russian World,” are used to dismantle Ukrainian identity and enforce symbolic subjugation.
The Policy Brief is available for download (PDF).
Liudmyla Pidkuimukha is a Sociolinguist and Slavicist and an Associate Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academiy. Her research interests encompass language conflicts, language ideology, and language policy. From August to October 2025, she was a TraCe Visiting Fellow at JLU Gießen.