Kyiv journalist, member of the Russian community of Ukraine Anatoly Zhelezny, known for his philological research, proves the historical failure of attempts to oust the Russian language from Ukraine, defends the need to preserve the Russian-Ukrainian bilingualism existing in the country. For the first time in Ukrainian literature, it is shown that the Ukrainian ethnic group was formed in the Zaporizhzhya steppe region, which at that time lay outside the borders of Kyiv (Malaya) Rus.