Go with Russian. In some regions of Ukraine people speak Ukrainian, in some they speak Russian. But the important part is that practically everybody can understand both languages without any problems. And if you ask nicely and say that you are a foreigner, I am sure most of ukrainian-speaking population will agree to temporarily switch to Russian. So it would be logical to learn Russian because you'll be able to use Ukrainian in Ukraine only while you'll be able to use Russian in a rather wide number of countries (basically all ex-USSR countries are like that: they know their local language + Russian). Source(s): hi from Kiev 8 months ago 2 people rated this as good thanks for the help everyone :) I appriciate it