Former US Ambassador notes importance of learning Ukrainian

Michael McFaul, Former United States Ambassador to Russia, believes that the United States needs to increase Ukrainian studies in view of the fact that Ukraine will become a member of the EU and NATO in the future, despite it having been traditionally seen in the shadow of Russia.

Source: McFaul on Friday at the Kyiv Security Forum, European Pravda reports.

According to the diplomat, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States began to pay much less attention to the study of individual countries that were previously under Russian occupation.

Quote: "I am a professor at Stanford University and I will tell you that we do not have a department of Ukrainian studies. And it's a shame, it's very wrong," McFaul said.

In his opinion, the Western world and the United States in particular should decolonise the view of the post-Soviet space both politically and in the context of study.

"Since Ukraine will become one of the most important countries in Europe, one of the most important countries in the European Union and NATO, [we] in particular as the United States, must begin to understand Ukraine in all its manifestations, in all dimensions, and not just as a country located somewhere near Russia," he concluded.

Earlier, Estonian diplomat Anneli Kolk, who in the fall of 2023 will head the embassy in Kyiv, said that she began to learn the Ukrainian language.

In addition, the Ukrainian language became available in eTranslation, the official translation system of the European Commission. 

Corrected at 21:13. In the previous version of the news, Michael McFaul was mistakenly called the former US ambassador to Ukraine. We apologise for the mistake.

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