COLORADO SPRINGS — A local Russian language group in Colorado Springs gathers every Saturday at a library in northern Colorado Springs to practice their Russian and learn more about Russian culture.

Growing up in the bilingual city of Kyiv in the 1990s, I studied the Ukrainian language like a museum object—intensely, but at a distance, never quite feeling all of its textures or bringing it home.

Many Ukraine citizens speak Russian as their first language. Volunteer organizations are helping them improve their Ukrainian and abandon “the occupiers’ language.” By Erika Solomon LVIV, Ukraine — ...