Amid a growing partnership between China and Russia, Mandarin has been growing in popularity across Russia as a foreign language of choice, a trend Putin said was due to developing contacts across economics, politics and society.

Putin, who speaks fluent German but has also taken lessons to improve his English, said that pupils should not forget the importance of English.

Russian, English, Tatar, German and Chechen are the most widely spoken languages in Russia, according to the 2022 census. While Mandarin is spoken far less, it has been growing swiftly in popularity in recent years as a foreign language.

English is the world’s most spoken language with about 1.5 billion speakers, followed by Mandarin Chinese with about 1.1 billion speakers, and then Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, French, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian and Urdu, according to Ethnologue, a language research centre.

Russia’s Putin as opposed to…? Just funny phrasing

Having Chinese overlords is going to be really shitty for the average Russian but nowhere near as shitty as what they have now.

Huh sombody downvoted this comment when it was removed, i must have a fan

Prepared for their future masters, I guess. Being fluent in Mandarin is a significant feat when it’s not your first language, though. I wonder if they read it too, that would be even more impressive. I’d gladly learn it if I had a use for it, but I don’t think I can allocate enough time and energy learn the writing at this point of my life anymore.

Smartest thing I’ve heard attributed to him in a hot minute.

Soon all Russians has to learn Mandarin Chinese. As 1st language.

There was a comment on another thread how China could relatively easily use all their resources to successfully invade Russia.

But at this rate, I think China will just buy Russia for a few million dollars lol.