The Kerch Straight And The Linguistic Makeup Of Ukraine

One of the main Russian justifications for the Ukraine War is to provide a land corridor from the rest of Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. But this justification doesn't hold water, because the Crimean Bridge across the Kerch Straight (shown in the red oval below) that connects the shallow Azov Sea and the Black Sea, has been open to road traffic since 2018 and to rail traffic since 2019.

The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world with an average depth of 7 metres (23 ft) and maximum depth of 14 metres (46 ft).

The Kerch Strait . . . connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west from the Taman Peninsula of Russia's Krasnodar Krai in the east. 

The strait is 3.1 kilometres (1.9 mi) to 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) wide and up to 18 metres (59 ft) deep. The most important harbor, the Crimean city of Kerch, gives its name to the strait, formerly known as the Cimmerian Bosporus. It has also been called the Straits of Yenikale after the Yeni-Kale fortress in Kerch.

Taman, the most important settlement on the Taman Peninsula side of the strait, sits on Taman Bay, which is separated from the main Kerch Strait by the Chushka Spit to the north and the former Tuzla Spit to the south; the Tuzla Spit is now Tuzla Island, connected to the Taman Peninsula by a 2003 Russian-built 3.8-kilometre-long (2.4 mi) dam, and to mainland Crimea by the Crimean Bridge opened in 2018. A major cargo port is under construction near Taman. . . .

After the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea the government of Russia decided to build a bridge across the Kerch Strait. The 19-kilometre (11.6 mi) Crimean Bridge opened to road traffic in 2018 and the rail section opened in 2019.

 The Crimean Bridge in 2019 via Wikipedia.

The Ukraine War, of course, only began in February of 2022, four years after the road portion of the Crimean Bridge was completed and three years after the rail portion of the Crimean Bridge was completed.

In the 2007 election in Ukraine, much of Eastern Ukraine sided with pro-Russian parties (the blue Party of Regions and the Red Communist Party of Ukraine) over the pro-Western parties (the purple Tymoshenko block and the orange Our Ukraine party) in a closely divided election, but the regions where the second place party was the Communist Party of Ukraine was the most hard core. (The pink Socialist Party of Ukraine didn't win enough support to win seats in parliament and was second place only in areas where the Party of Regions was particularly strong).

Final 2007 Results (first place) (from Wikipedia)

Final 2007 Results (second place) (from Wikipedia)

Orange Parties (Pro-Western)
Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc 156 seats
Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc 72 seats
Subtotal: 228 seats

Pro-Russian Parties
Party of Regions 175
Communist Party of Ukraine 27 seats
Subtotal: 202 seats

Other Parties
Lytvyn Bloc 20 seats

Total: 450 seats (a majority it 226; a two-thirds majority is 300).

But, politics have change a lot in fifteen years in Ukraine, and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 tipped the political balance in favor of pro-Western forces.

The Ukraine War makes more sense as an effort on the part of Russia to gain control of majority Russian language speaking areas.

The map below (from here) shows the percentage of people for whom Russian was their primary language in 2001:

Broken down on a province by province basis, the same data is as follows:

Thus, from north to south, the province of Luhansk was 68.8% Russian speaking, the province of Donetsk was 74.9% Russian speaking, the province of Zaporizhia was 48.2% Russian speaking, the province of Kherson was 24.9% Russian speaking, most of Crimea was 77% Russian speaking, and one enclave on the Crimean peninsula was 90.6% Russian speaking.

Moreover, in Zaporizhia and Kherson, the Russian speaking population was concentrated along the coast of the Sea of Azov.

There was also a 41.9% Russian speaking population in Odessa, in the far southwest of Ukraine.

According to a 2004 public opinion poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the number of people using Russian language in their homes considerably exceeds the number of those who declared Russian as their native language in the census. According to the survey, Russian is used at home by 43–46% of the population of the country (in other words a similar proportion to Ukrainian) and Russophones make a majority of the population in Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine:

• Autonomous Republic of Crimea — 97% of the population
• Dnipropetrovsk Oblast — 72%
• Donetsk Oblast — 93%
• Luhansk Oblast — 89%
• Zaporizhzhia Oblast — 81%
• Odessa Oblast — 85%
• Kharkiv Oblast — 74%
• Mykolaiv Oblast — 66%

While the survey figures may be more accurate, the census figures may be a better gauge of political identity.

The territory that came under the control of Russia or Russian separatists in 2014 was almost all majority Russian speaking (based upon the 2001 census), and most of it was 60% or more Russian speaking (based upon the 2001 census).

Of course, the situation has changed since the 2001 census, the 2004 survey cited, and the 2007 election. 

Some of the Ukrainian speaking minority in Russian annexed Crimea and Russian separatist controlled portions of Luhansk and Donetsk probably fled when those areas came under the control of Russia and Russian allied separatists in 2014. More Ukrainian speakers have probably fled from the entire region in Eastern Ukraine that Russia has held at some point or another in 2022.

Likewise, probably some Russian speakers in the rest of Ukraine have probably migrated to Russian controlled areas, although this move was probably less decisive.

Ukrainian speakers in areas with large Russian speaking minorities as of 2007 who backed the Party of Regions as a moderating force against the Pro-Western Parties, have probably changed their alliances decisively towards Pro-Western political forces.

The referendums that Russia has held in 2022 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson were mere show elections held while these provinces were under military rule. But if free and fair elections had been held even prior to the February 2022 invasion, large majorities in Luhansk and Donetsk would probably have supported Russian annexation, and voters probably would have opposed annexation in Kherson (where fighting is currently intense and a fair amount of Ukrainian de facto control has been restored).

In Zaporizhia, a free and fair election held in 2021 would probably have rejected annexation by a much narrower margin, but an out flux of Ukrainian speaking refugees in 2022 might have shifted the balance narrowly towards Russia among people who remain there.