Is Ukrainian closer to Russian or Polish?

From that point of view, Ukrainian is much closer to Russian than it is to Polish. It should not surprise us, as both Ukraine and Russia are the offspring of the Kievan Rus', a loose Empire centered around Kiev (882–1240). read more

As a result, the Belarusian language is much closer to Ukrainian than Russian and also acquired Polish influence over the course of its history. However, the language’s phonology and grammar remains closer to Russian than Ukrainian, which is evident in the shared Akanye vowel reduction feature. read more

Russian, Ukrainian and Polish all belong to the Slavic group of the Balto-Slavic branch. Russian and Ukrainian belong to the East Slavic sub-group of the Slavic group, but Polish belongs to the West Slavic sub-group of that same Slavic group. From that point of view, Ukrainian is much closer to Russian than it is to Polish. read more

Ukrainian language in relation to Polish and Russian Ukrainian/Russian/Polish - mutual intelligibility I've been reading and writing a lot in Ukrainian lately and I even got to speak some not so long ago, and, as a native speaker of Polish, I can assure you Ukrainian is lexically very close to West Slavic languages. read more