A lot of Ukrainians I know seem to be speaking much more Ukrainian than they did a few years ago. People from Russian speaking towns.

There does seem to be a serious de-russification vibe, stronger than ever and definitely not just something foreigners are interested in.

I'll give just one small example that I'm reminded of... There's been a lot of drama about signs when you enter a town. Russians will capture a town, paint the sign with their flag, change spellings to replace і with и, etc. Ukrainians will recapture, repaint, and switch to their spelling... It's a thing.

Russia focused so much on language issues to justify what it's doing that it backfired - in any discussion where Russian vs Ukrainian can be brought up, it will inevitably be symbolic now, regardless of what people speak.