UKRAINIANS, ETHNIC

Ethnic group. At nearly 3 million or more than 2 percent of the total population, Ukrainians represent the thirdlargest nationality within the Russian Federation (in neighboringUkraine, there are 37.5 million Ukrainians). Closely related to bothRussiansand Belarusians, Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnicity and are predominantly EasternOrthodox, though a minority profess Greek Catholicism. The majority of Ukrainians residing in Russia use theRussian languagein their daily lives, though many maintain some level of fluency in Ukrainian or Surzhyk, a Russian-Ukrainian patois.

While thefederal subjectsadjacent to Ukraine (particularlyKrasnodar Krai) and traditionalCossackareas (such asOrenburg) include significant numbers of ethnic Ukrainians, the diaspora is resident in every part of the Russian Federation, a legacy of both tsarist and Soviet settlement policies that favored Slavic settlement of peripheral areas of the Russian Empire/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).In the provinces ofChukotka,Magadan, andKhantiya-Mansiya, Ukrainians make up nearly one-tenth of the population. The political identity of Ukrainians within the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and contemporary Russia remains a hotly debated issue. Some estimates suggest that upward of 10 million citizens of the Russian Federation are of Ukrainian origin; however, policies ofRussificationand social pressure against the use of the Ukrainianlanguageled to high levels of assimilation during the second half of the 20th century. Since 1991, a number of cultural organizations for the so-called Eastern Diaspora have been established inSt.Petersburg,Moscow, and other large cities, the most prominent of which is the Slavutych Society.

See alsoNational identity.