In 1991, the fall of the Soviet Union sent a shockwave through Eurasia, one whose remains can still be seen today. States reacted in various ways to the transition; while some clung to the Moscow center, others attempted to define themselves separate from their Soviet past. Ukraine is unique in its reaction to its post-1991 sovereignty; it has attempted to shift away from its historical Eurasian identification towards establishing relations with the European Union and other major players in the Western world.Ukraine has utilized nation-building efforts through the promotion of titular language policy to secure this transition. Since 1989, the country has adopted various laws promoting the use of Ukrainian in the educational, state, and other public spheres. It has asserted that the promotion of Ukrainian, the only official state language, is necessary to develop the spiritual creative forces of the Ukrainian people and to guarantee the state's future sovereign success. These efforts, however, have only been partially successful. While more than three quarters of the population in Western Ukraine reported using primarily Ukrainian in conversation, nearly half of the population in Kyiv, in Central Ukraine, admitted to using primarily Russian at home, and more than 80 percent of the population in Eastern Ukraine reported using primarily Russian language.I argue that the nation-building efforts in Ukraine through titular language policy have only been partially successful due to Russia's exertion of soft power, which has resonated much with the Eastern and Southern parts of the state and, to a lesser extent, Central Ukraine. This soft power has established a Russophone identity among both ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians that clashes with the concept of a Ukrainian identity as promoted by the state through titular-language policies. This indicates that external factors, such as foreign soft power, can play a critical role in identity development.
