LGBTQ+ International: Chile's Non-Binary ID, Slovakia In Mourning, Mr Gay World — And The Week’s Other Top News – Worldcrunch

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Chile's Civil Registry issued the first ID card with the “X” gender marker.
Welcome to Worldcrunch’s LGBTQ+ International. We bring you up-to-speed each week on a topic you may follow closely at home, but can now see from different places and perspectives around the world. Discover the latest news on everything LGBTQ+ — from all corners of the planet. All in one smooth scroll!
This week featuring:

✉️ You can receive our LGBTQ+ International roundup every week directly in your inbox. Subscribe here.

TW: This content may address topics and include references to violence that some may find distressing.

Thousands gathered at a vigil on Saturday to commemorate two men who were shot in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava last week in a suspected hate crime. The vigil drew more than 20,000, demanding more protection for LGBTQ+ people in Slovakia, a relatively conservative EU country where same-sex marriage is still not legal.
The 19-year-old gunman, who is believed to have shot himself after the attack, was identified as Juraj Krajcik, the son of a former far-right politician. Before carrying out the attack, he posted an anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Semitic manifesto on Twitter, and claimed responsibility for the killings.
Slovak President Zuzana Caputova attended the vigil, saying, "I'm sorry that our society was not able to protect your loved ones. You belong here, you are valuable for our society."
University of South Florida
Simon Kellogg

The University of South Florida has announced a new scholarship in order to build an LGBTQ+-inclusive atmosphere within the university’s athletic department. USF alumnus Brett Chambers and his husband Ryan Rhodes, have committed to a $5,000 donation to the scholarship fund each for the next five years. “I’m just an alum who’s trying to support his alma mater and the LGBTQ+ community,” Chambers said.
The goal of this scholarship is to use its visibility to demonstrate LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports. This scholarship is similar to one created by the University of Colorado which was also the idea of Nichols Turco, a former athlete.
A new report from the U.S.-based gun safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety shows that of the more than 25,000 hate crimes annually in the U.S. involving a firearm, a significant number of those crimes are directed at the LGBTQ+ community.
The report shows that LGBTQ+ youth have a greater chance of experiencing bias-motivated violence involving weapons than non-LGBTQ+ youth, and further reporting shows that 17% of LGBTQ+ youth, 29% of trans youth and 30% of questioning youth have been hurt or threatened by a weapon at school, compared to 6% of non-LGBTQ+ youth.
Oct. 14 will remain a historic day for the trans and non-binary community in Chile, as the Civil Registry and Identification Service handed over the first identity card with the “X” gender marker. The identity card belongs to Shane Cienfuegos, activist, social worker and specialist in gender studies, who does not recognize themself in the boxes “M” or “F”.
As Presentes reports, in Chile there is no official procedure to recognize oneself as non-binary. Unless you go to court. That’s what Cienfuegos did, starting their legal battle in 2014. In 2017 they managed to legally change their name and last week achieved their gender marker change. "It took me years and led me to a fight with the Justice that no one should have to face," Cienfuegos told Presentes LGBTQ+ media.
The State of Mexico became the 29th of the country's 32 states to recognize same-sex unions. That leaves only the northern border state of Tamaulipas, the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, where the president comes from, and the southern state of Guerrero without equal access to marriage laws.
José Lopez Dupont via Instagram

José Lopez Duvont, a 32 year-old from Puerto Rico, was crowned Mr Gay World 2022 at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town on Saturday. The actor and model — the first competitor from the Americas to win the contest — had focused his social responsibility campaign on body dysmorphia, which he suffered from as a child.
During the international competition putting the spotlight on LGBTQ+ rights activists, Lopez was also awarded in several categories: Best Social Media Presence, Best in National Costume, Best Sports Challenge, Best in Swimwear and Best in Formal Wear. Tony Ardolino, 30, from the United States, was first runner up and Max Appenroth, 36, from Germany was elected second runner up of this 14th edition of Mr Gay World. The latter made global history as being the first transgender delegate in the finals of any international contest.
Swiss novelist Kim de l’Horizon was awarded the prestigious German Book Prize in an emotional ceremony which saw the non-binary writer shave their head in support of Iranian women.
As German daily Die Welt reports, de l’Horizon, 32, received the prize for Blutbuch (“Blood Book”) their debut novel that “defies conventional notions of gender.” They started their acceptance speech by tearfully thanking their mother in Swiss German, before breaking into song in an impressive rendition of Kavinsky’s “Nightcall.”
The ceremony then took a more political turn when de l’Horizon proceeded to shave their head on stage, saying that the prize was also a "sign against hatred, for love" and solidarity for women in Iran.
As Italy’s incoming far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is working on shaping her first government, her right-wing coalition ally Matteo Salvini is reportedly pushing for Simona Baldassarre to be appointed as Minister of Birth and Family.
The 51-year-old member of the Liga party, which Italian daily La Repubblica notes is close to ultra-Catholic associations, is known for her conservative views on women's reproductive health and spoke out against surrogacy in the European Parliament. She once warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen against “the votes of gay lobbies.”
Cover of an issue of Vogue Singapore
Official Facebook page

Fashion magazine Vogue Singapore has been issued a warning and saw its publishing permit shortened after it repeatedly featured “nudity and content that promoted non-traditional families,” which Singaporean authorities say is in breach of content guidelines in the country.
A Ministry of Communications and Information spokesperson told The Straits Times that the sanction involved revoking Vogue Singapore's current one-year publication permit, replacing it with a six-month permit.
Although the Southeast Asian island-country announced plans to decriminalize gay sex, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also vowed to "safeguard the institution of marriage," defined as between a man and a woman, according to AFP.
In a significant step towards improving the rights of LGBTQ+ people, Bosnia and Herzegovina has unveiled its first ever strategy to bring human rights protections in the country up to European Union standards.
Under the “2021-24 LGBT Action Plan,” which was presented in July by the Ministry of Human Rights, this strategy is the first of its kind in the country. It includes new legislation on hate speech, freedom of assembly, family law, transgender rights, prejudice and stereotyping.
Wikipedia's homepage
Official siteOfficial site

A group of 40 French public figures, including writer Virginie Despentes and director Céline Sciamma, have signed an open letter published on weekly magazine L’Obs to denounce “stigmatizing behaviors” against trans, non-binary and intersex people on Wikipedia.
Misgendering, deadnaming (referring to a transgender or non-binary person by a name used prior to transitioning), publication of pre-transitioning pictures, harassment of openly trans users who contribute to the online encyclopedia … An inquiry led by the group and organizations such as the Association Nationale Transgenre has found that “nothing has been done inside this very influential company to help Wikipedia users understand the transgender issues in the present world,” leaving “a void that benefits reactionary movements” and “stirs stereotypes and hatred.”
The open letter is calling for the online encyclopedia to take concrete action and “align itself with the values prized by its community.”
• Plus Magazine sits down with influential U.S. rapper, poet and activist Mykki Blanco to discuss their legacy as one of the few out HIV-positive creators.
• Openly mourns the passing of Hollywood icon Angela Lansbury (of Murder, She Wrote fame) and looks back on her actions as a prominent campaigner in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
• LGBTQ dives into the history of house music and what the genre owes to Queer Black people.
• With Halloween around the corner, Autostraddle looks at the 25 scariest queer horror movie moments.
Chile's Civil Registry issued the first ID card with the “X” gender marker.
Welcome to Worldcrunch’s LGBTQ+ International. We bring you up-to-speed each week on a topic you may follow closely at home, but can now see from different places and perspectives around the world. Discover the latest news on everything LGBTQ+ — from all corners of the planet. All in one smooth scroll!
This week featuring:

✉️ You can receive our LGBTQ+ International roundup every week directly in your inbox. Subscribe here.

TW: This content may address topics and include references to violence that some may find distressing.

Thousands gathered at a vigil on Saturday to commemorate two men who were shot in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava last week in a suspected hate crime. The vigil drew more than 20,000, demanding more protection for LGBTQ+ people in Slovakia, a relatively conservative EU country where same-sex marriage is still not legal.
The 19-year-old gunman, who is believed to have shot himself after the attack, was identified as Juraj Krajcik, the son of a former far-right politician. Before carrying out the attack, he posted an anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Semitic manifesto on Twitter, and claimed responsibility for the killings.
Slovak President Zuzana Caputova attended the vigil, saying, "I'm sorry that our society was not able to protect your loved ones. You belong here, you are valuable for our society."
University of South Florida
Simon Kellogg

The University of South Florida has announced a new scholarship in order to build an LGBTQ+-inclusive atmosphere within the university’s athletic department. USF alumnus Brett Chambers and his husband Ryan Rhodes, have committed to a $5,000 donation to the scholarship fund each for the next five years. “I’m just an alum who’s trying to support his alma mater and the LGBTQ+ community,” Chambers said.
The goal of this scholarship is to use its visibility to demonstrate LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports. This scholarship is similar to one created by the University of Colorado which was also the idea of Nichols Turco, a former athlete.
A new report from the U.S.-based gun safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety shows that of the more than 25,000 hate crimes annually in the U.S. involving a firearm, a significant number of those crimes are directed at the LGBTQ+ community.
The report shows that LGBTQ+ youth have a greater chance of experiencing bias-motivated violence involving weapons than non-LGBTQ+ youth, and further reporting shows that 17% of LGBTQ+ youth, 29% of trans youth and 30% of questioning youth have been hurt or threatened by a weapon at school, compared to 6% of non-LGBTQ+ youth.
Oct. 14 will remain a historic day for the trans and non-binary community in Chile, as the Civil Registry and Identification Service handed over the first identity card with the “X” gender marker. The identity card belongs to Shane Cienfuegos, activist, social worker and specialist in gender studies, who does not recognize themself in the boxes “M” or “F”.
As Presentes reports, in Chile there is no official procedure to recognize oneself as non-binary. Unless you go to court. That’s what Cienfuegos did, starting their legal battle in 2014. In 2017 they managed to legally change their name and last week achieved their gender marker change. "It took me years and led me to a fight with the Justice that no one should have to face," Cienfuegos told Presentes LGBTQ+ media.
The State of Mexico became the 29th of the country's 32 states to recognize same-sex unions. That leaves only the northern border state of Tamaulipas, the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, where the president comes from, and the southern state of Guerrero without equal access to marriage laws.
José Lopez Dupont via Instagram

José Lopez Duvont, a 32 year-old from Puerto Rico, was crowned Mr Gay World 2022 at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town on Saturday. The actor and model — the first competitor from the Americas to win the contest — had focused his social responsibility campaign on body dysmorphia, which he suffered from as a child.
During the international competition putting the spotlight on LGBTQ+ rights activists, Lopez was also awarded in several categories: Best Social Media Presence, Best in National Costume, Best Sports Challenge, Best in Swimwear and Best in Formal Wear. Tony Ardolino, 30, from the United States, was first runner up and Max Appenroth, 36, from Germany was elected second runner up of this 14th edition of Mr Gay World. The latter made global history as being the first transgender delegate in the finals of any international contest.
Swiss novelist Kim de l’Horizon was awarded the prestigious German Book Prize in an emotional ceremony which saw the non-binary writer shave their head in support of Iranian women.
As German daily Die Welt reports, de l’Horizon, 32, received the prize for Blutbuch (“Blood Book”) their debut novel that “defies conventional notions of gender.” They started their acceptance speech by tearfully thanking their mother in Swiss German, before breaking into song in an impressive rendition of Kavinsky’s “Nightcall.”
The ceremony then took a more political turn when de l’Horizon proceeded to shave their head on stage, saying that the prize was also a "sign against hatred, for love" and solidarity for women in Iran.
As Italy’s incoming far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is working on shaping her first government, her right-wing coalition ally Matteo Salvini is reportedly pushing for Simona Baldassarre to be appointed as Minister of Birth and Family.
The 51-year-old member of the Liga party, which Italian daily La Repubblica notes is close to ultra-Catholic associations, is known for her conservative views on women's reproductive health and spoke out against surrogacy in the European Parliament. She once warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen against “the votes of gay lobbies.”
Cover of an issue of Vogue Singapore
Official Facebook page

Fashion magazine Vogue Singapore has been issued a warning and saw its publishing permit shortened after it repeatedly featured “nudity and content that promoted non-traditional families,” which Singaporean authorities say is in breach of content guidelines in the country.
A Ministry of Communications and Information spokesperson told The Straits Times that the sanction involved revoking Vogue Singapore's current one-year publication permit, replacing it with a six-month permit.
Although the Southeast Asian island-country announced plans to decriminalize gay sex, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also vowed to "safeguard the institution of marriage," defined as between a man and a woman, according to AFP.
In a significant step towards improving the rights of LGBTQ+ people, Bosnia and Herzegovina has unveiled its first ever strategy to bring human rights protections in the country up to European Union standards.
Under the “2021-24 LGBT Action Plan,” which was presented in July by the Ministry of Human Rights, this strategy is the first of its kind in the country. It includes new legislation on hate speech, freedom of assembly, family law, transgender rights, prejudice and stereotyping.
Wikipedia's homepage
Official siteOfficial site

A group of 40 French public figures, including writer Virginie Despentes and director Céline Sciamma, have signed an open letter published on weekly magazine L’Obs to denounce “stigmatizing behaviors” against trans, non-binary and intersex people on Wikipedia.
Misgendering, deadnaming (referring to a transgender or non-binary person by a name used prior to transitioning), publication of pre-transitioning pictures, harassment of openly trans users who contribute to the online encyclopedia … An inquiry led by the group and organizations such as the Association Nationale Transgenre has found that “nothing has been done inside this very influential company to help Wikipedia users understand the transgender issues in the present world,” leaving “a void that benefits reactionary movements” and “stirs stereotypes and hatred.”
The open letter is calling for the online encyclopedia to take concrete action and “align itself with the values prized by its community.”
• Plus Magazine sits down with influential U.S. rapper, poet and activist Mykki Blanco to discuss their legacy as one of the few out HIV-positive creators.
• Openly mourns the passing of Hollywood icon Angela Lansbury (of Murder, She Wrote fame) and looks back on her actions as a prominent campaigner in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
• LGBTQ dives into the history of house music and what the genre owes to Queer Black people.
• With Halloween around the corner, Autostraddle looks at the 25 scariest queer horror movie moments.
After months of trading barbs with Ukraine's allies in the West, Tehran is now fully engaged alongside Moscow in the conflict, most notably with supplies of so-called Kamikaze drones. Although the fact that Iran still denies its activities is a sign that the partnership is loaded.
A July meeting of Iran's Supreme Leader Al Khamenei and Russian President Vladimir Putin
-Analysis-
In Ukraine, they’ve been nicknamed “mopeds” for the sound of their motors as they terrorize from the air. The Shahed-136 kamikaze drones striking Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odessa are also the most visible sign that Iran has officially entered the war in Ukraine as an active military partner for Russia.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.
These drones, which have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, are being launched from Crimea and Voronezh in southwestern Russia. They cost far less than missiles, and although they don't have the same destructive power, they can kill humans and disable critical infrastructure at any moment on any street in any Ukrainian city.
U.S. intelligence, which had warned this past summer that Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to buy a large batch of drones, are now reporting that Iran is also planning to sell ground-to-ground ballistic missiles to Moscow. On top of this, there are multiple reports that Iran is sending military advisors to train Russians to use their weapons.
After limiting itself in the first months of the war to rhetorical barbs aimed at Ukraine’s allies in the West, the past two weeks have thus seen a major escalation of Tehran’s role alongside Moscow.
To some degree, it can be explained by a natural affinity between two ambitious regional powers who share authoritarian control over their respective countries and a common enemy in the West. But there are multiple layers and often conflicting interests behind this cautious alliance — one in which Iran continues to deny its direct involvement in the war. On Monday Tehran called the accusations that it is supplying weapons to Russia a "media war."

Indeed, the denials are a sign that Tehran is aware of a variety of risks to its self-interest of backing Russia, from economics to diplomacy to domestic resistance during the ongoing street protests. But Iran is forging ahead regardless.
Relations date back more than a millennium between these two former and would-be future empires, whose geographic vicinity has varied over the centuries, depending on the reach of the respective domains.

Official diplomatic relations were established in 1521 between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Persian Empire, with commercial and diplomatic ties ebbing and flowing until the late 19th century, when Russia and Britain sought to control parts of Iran. The Russian Revolution of 1917 would eventually lead to the expansion of the Soviet Union to include Azerbaijan, which meant that the USSR and Iran would share a border for decades.
During the Cold War, relations between the USSR and Iran were ambiguous: Politically, the Shah's Iran was oriented toward the United States. But economically, Moscow and Tehran maintained solid trade relations. Soviet leader Mikhail Brezhnev greeted the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran favorably, as it targeted Tehran's alliance with Washington; yet in the Iran-Iraq war, the USSR supported Iraq even while continuing to trade and build infrastructure and energy facilities in Iran.
The withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan markedly improved Iranian-Russian contacts, and Moscow has also been Iran's key nuclear energy partner since 1992.
More recently, Russia also helped Iran solve some of its regional military problems: In 2015, Putin sent air power to Syria to prevent the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad, whom Iran actively supported. The operations required Russian and Iranian militaries to work closely together, including Moscow’s air force covering Iranian fighters and their proxy forces in ground operations.
While the regimes of Putin and Supreme leader Ali Khamenei share a prime enemy in the United States, Tehran had held off in supplying any material support after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But that has changed with the arrival of both the deadly drones and Iranian military personnel to train Russian troops.
Iran's earlier position of relative neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war made sense to many, in part for economic reasons.
Both Russia and Iran are struggling under international sanctions and have to look for markets that are not as subjected to scrutiny, which makes them competitors for trade across Asia, and China specifically.

They often have contrasting positions in energy markets, with Iran's exports of oil products suffering as Russia looks to reduce supply. Iran's steel exports were down almost 15% in September, which can also be attributed to Moscow, which slashed steel prices Previously, the main exporters of Iranian steel were South Korea and China.
So what changed the policy in Tehran?
Mikhail Podolyak, the head of the Ukraine Presidential Office, blamed Iran for agreeing to be "directly complicit in the mass murder of Ukrainians." Why?, he asked: "Russia offered something important to Iran in exchange for killer drones and a ballistic missile contract. It is one of these options: uranium and other materials; nuclear technology; regional guarantees from the Russian Federation."
Yet Israeli military expert David Gendelman believes the reason why Iran is helping Russia is not the hope for assistance in developing nuclear weapons: Russia has no interest in the emergence of another nuclear state. But what Iran cannot create on its own under sanctions is military aviation, which Russia can provide.
"Iran is actively developing drones precisely because it does not have the ability to build aircraft. Russia has most likely offered practical assistance in this matter. Besides, Iran needs money; the state of their economy under sanctions is much more difficult than in Russia," he believes.
@EA_WorldView via Twitter
On Oct. 21, Israel launched missile strikes on a military facility in Syria. Syrian agencies reported that the plant where the kamikaze drones were made was completely destroyed. But there is no evidence that the factory made drones for Russia — and this strike by itself does not mean that Israel started to actively support Ukraine militarily.
Still, last week, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that relations between Israel and Russia have become more complicated due to Russia's cooperation with Iran, adding that Israel is monitoring arms shipments against Ukraine and is doing its best to let the U.S. and Ukraine's other allies know them. But once again, as the prime minister stressed, this does not mean that Israel is ready to help Ukraine with weapons, particularly anti-air defenses.
"This is kind of crossing a line, a crossing that, for many reasons, seems wrong to me. I'm talking about a series of arguments that are relevant to our national security. I won't go into details, but this policy seems right to me. It does not cancel our commitment to support Ukraine and the principle of its territorial integrity," the minister said.
Ukraine responded to Iran sending drones by breaking off diplomatic relations and demanding that Kyiv's allies use all available levers of pressure on Tehran. The most important of these levers is the reactivation of the nuclear deal that Iran has been negotiating with the West since Donald Trump left office.

"Ukraine can convince the West that tying the issue of stopping drone supplies to the prospect of lifting Western sanctions is the only incentive for Iran to be cautious in its dealings with Russia," says Ilya Kusa, an expert on international politics and the Middle East at the Ukrainian Institute of the Future.
Newly reelected Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not mention Russia during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China. He sees a bipolar world with only two leaders: China and the United States. In that logic, Iran, like Ukraine, will be able to get reasonable offers from the U.S. and China, thus bypassing obligatory relations with Russia — which risks being a far weaker world player if it is effectively defeated in Ukraine.
Indeed, it all returns to events on the battlefield. Russia's turning to Iran for its kamikaze zones is a reaction to its continuing difficulty to gain and hold territory in Ukraine. But if Moscow's war is ultimately a failure, Iran will be more isolated on the world stage than ever.
After months of trading barbs with Ukraine's allies in the West, Tehran is now fully engaged alongside Moscow in the conflict, most notably with supplies of so-called Kamikaze drones. Although the fact that Iran still denies its activities is a sign that the partnership is loaded.
The West must address the degradation of democracy domestically, and worldwide. It's on the right side in the war in Ukraine. And in China. But what doesn’t ring true is President Biden’s flaunting the democratic cause as a foreign policy stick.
Ukraine and its Western partners say the warnings from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu could be a "false flag" operation used to divert attention from its own potential use of banned weapons.
Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.
Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.
Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.
Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.
There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.
According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.
The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.
So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.
Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform via ZUMA Press Wire
Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.
Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.
"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”
In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.
Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.
Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.
Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.
Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine
Diocesan Archive of Vienna (Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer
Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”
These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.
On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.
Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.

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