Kyiv just stripped Russian of its protection under Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Culture warriors at home and abroad have hailed this as a victory; in truth, the move strikes out at millions of Russophone Ukrainians, divides the country and confirms some of Putin’s claims about Ukraine. In a war of survival, splitting Ukraine and feeding Putin’s propaganda is not a cultural sideshow. It is suicide.

With his slight frame and warm, modest face, Pavel Viktor looks more like a parish priest than a political firebrand. In reality he is a physics teacher in Odessa, known to millions of Ukrainian schoolchildren for his experimental YouTube lessons. He remains in Odessa under bombardment and at 71 is still teaching. He is a model patriot by any measure. Yet he was recently

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