This thesis was spread in social networks, including in the Russian segment of social networks. The reports say that the Russian language is 400 years older than Ukrainian, which generally arose in the 16th-17th centuries under the influence of the Polish language.

This case was considered by the fact-checkers of the Myth Detector project, who explained that such a thesis is unfounded. The Ukrainian language comes from the Proto-Slavic language, which originated on the territory of Kyiv Rus. Although the development of the Ukrainian language was hampered until the 18th century, its foundations were laid a very long time ago - the East Slavic language group was formed in the 13th century after the collapse of Kyiv Rus. That is, after the collapse of Kyiv Rus, there was a division into Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian languages. They formed about the same time.

The Polish language belongs to the West Slavic linguistic group, and Ukrainian cannot be derived from it. Of course, for some period the Ukrainian language did not have much space for development, since it was always politically dependent on others (Russia, Rzeczpospolita). Both Polish and Russian have had a significant impact on Ukrainian.

This is not the first time Russian propaganda has hinted at the “artificiality” of the Ukrainian language, which allegedly comes from Russian or Polish, or is generally a “dialect”. Thus, Moscow seeks to mentally unite Ukrainians with Russians, they say, we have a common language, traditions and customs, so everyone is almost “blood brothers and sisters”.