How the Russian invasion has affected the use of the Ukrainian language on Twitter

The Ukrainian segment of Twitter (now X) has seen an increase in the use of the Ukrainian language since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. This is evidenced by the results of a study published in the journal Communications Psychology.

The authors of the study are Daniel Raczek, Brittany Davidson, Paul Turner, Xiao Xiang Zhu, and Goran Kauermann. As part of their work, they analyzed nearly 4.5 million tweets from more than 62.7 thousand users between January 2020 and October 2022.

Experts observed a steady shift from Russian to Ukrainian before the invasion, which accelerated sharply after it began. The researchers attribute this shift largely to changes in user behavior.

“Notably, our analysis shows that more than half of the Russian-tweeting users switch towards Ukrainian with the Russian invasion. We interpret these findings as users’ conscious choice towards a more Ukrainian (online) identity and self-definition of being Ukrainian,” the authors noted.

According to their findings, the use of the Ukrainian language increased by 43% before the full-scale invasion. After it began, the growth accelerated rapidly, by as much as 87%.

Almost 100% of Ukrainians aged 18-39 use some form of social media. Among them, Twitter accounts for the following percentages in different age categories: 18-29 years old (13%), 30-39 years old (8%), 40-49 years old (7%), and 50+ (1%).