Ukrainians who grew up speaking Russian learn a new mother tongue

Oleksandr Zahalskyy spent most of his life speaking only Russian. Born in 1960 in what was then the Soviet Union, Zahalskyy hails from the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian city of Kherson. Now, at 63 and living in the capital, Kyiv, Zahalskyy and his wife Natasha are in the midst of the difficult but voluntary transition – making the Ukrainian language their own. "At first, we thought we needed to know our national language, but with the start of this full-scale war, the feeling changed from'I have to' to'I want to'," Zahalskyy told Al Jazeera by phone. The invasion Russia launched on February 24 last year, which started the biggest war in Europe since 1945, is seen by many Ukrainians as an attempt to wipe them out – and their culture, language and way of life.