Despite the efforts of Russian despots for hundreds of years, the Ukrainian language is alive and well.
Ukrainian is NOT the same as Russian any more than Portuguese is the same as Spanish. And even if you don't speak Ukrainian or Russian, you can learn to tell them apart just by adjusting your ears to certain sounds and patterns.
Destroying a culture is what genocide is about. And language is at the heart of culture. So the increased use of Ukrainian in Ukraine since Putin's invasion began is an indicator of the failure of Russia to wipe out Ukraine as a distinct entity.
Ukrainian text has some distinctive elements. The three East Slavic languages all use the Cyrillic alphabet. Just as there are some differences in the Latin alphabet from language to language, the same is true in East Slavic Cyrillic. I made this chart to make it easier to tell Ukrainian from Russian and Belarusian if you only have an image or a video clip with some text in it. (corrections from native speakers welcome!)
If you'd like to become better acquainted with the sounds of Ukrainian, here's the live feed from Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne (Суспільне). FYI: Kyiv is at UTC/GMT +3 hours. There is also occasional Russian in some segments and incidental bits of English in international news.
Several things to notice about Ukrainian:
as in Czech and Slovak, the original Slavic G sound has mutated to an H sound. You'll generally only hear G in foreign words or modern loan words.
if you understand any Polish, you'll notice more words similar to Polish in Ukrainian than in Russian.
a bit subjective from an English speaker, but Ukrainian sounds like it is pronounced more towards the front of the mouth while Russian sounds more nasal.
yes is tak and no is ni in Ukrainian – though tak (так) can also mean so, like (as a conjunction), or as.
