Why Does the Ukrainian Language Use the Russian Alphabet?

This question is fairly common: Why does the Ukrainian language use the Russian alphabet? The short answer? It doesn’t. Ukrainian has its own distinct alphabet.

Both Ukrainian and Russian, along with other languages like Bulgarian, Serbian, and Belarusian, rely on the Cyrillic script. Each has adapted the original Cyrillic script to fit the specific phonetic needs of its language. Ukrainian and Russian, for instance, have key differences in letters and pronunciation. However, because Cyrillic script is often associated with the Russian alphabet, people mistakenly believe all Cyrillic-based alphabets are "Russian."

This misunderstanding isn’t just linguistic—it’s historical. The Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union actively promoted the idea of a singular "Russian world," often downplaying or suppressing the unique identities of neighboring cultures. Imperial narratives blurred the distinctions between languages like Ukrainian and Russian, reinforcing the false notion that Ukrainian is simply a dialect or variant of Russian rather than a fully independent language.

The script's origins trace back to the efforts of Saints Cyril and Methodius to bring Christianity and literacy to the Slavic world, hundreds of years before the rise of the Russian Empire. Thus, the Cyrillic alphabet belongs to a shared Slavic heritage, and calling it exclusively "Russian", besides being factually incorrect, also overlooks its diverse cultural and historical significance.