[iskander]

I was born in Kiev and spoke Russian at home. Can barely understand Ukrainian unless it's spoken slowly by a native Russian speaker. I can get the gist of what Zelensky is saying in an interview but can pretty much never understand native Ukrainian speakers. I think there's also a gradient of dialects and accents West to East, so I'm sure you can find some Ukrainian villager I would understand better but in general they're not mutually intelligible (to me).

[throwaway2037]

Wow. Did you attend Russian language-only schools when growing up? Is this common in your generation?

[iskander]

Moved to the US as a kid (by way of Estonia and then Italy), went to a year of Russian language "transitional" school here. So don't have any insight on the Ukrainian school experience.