As a foreigner a lot more useful to learn russian. Everybody speaks it in Ukraine. And other countries as well. Even at our university in Ukraine, russian was the main language amongst foreign students. Its sensible right now true.
As a foreigner a lot more useful to learn Russian.
Given that the state language is Ukrainian, and its overall dominance in media and culture -- there's no way this statement could possibly make sense.
Everybody speaks it in Ukraine.
This gets repeated a lot, but it's just not true. It's true that virtually everyone has some working comprehension of Russian because of earlier Soviet influences, and because the two languages are so similar (and in many parts of the country, the "Ukrainian" that is spoken is highly Surzhyk-influenced).
But realistically only about 70-80 percent of the population speak Russian fluently and comfortably. Given a choice, the vast majority would clearly prefer to speak Ukrainian (and many people have been switching voluntarily as a matter of preference since 2014; the government's mildly coercive efforts having nothing to do with this, really).
Even at our university in Ukraine, Russian was the main language amongst foreign students.
Probably because it's the only one among the two that they were able to study before coming there (and because they saw Russian as being more useful in other countries, as you say).
And even so, this applies only to certain universities in certain cities.
I spend many years till couple of months before the invasion in Ukraine. I have never met someone who doesnt speak russian. Only the elderly people have sometimes a mixed slang between russian and ukrainian. But other than that everyone speaks it. There are some hardcore nationalists connected to Bandera (pro nazi group) that refuse to speak russian, but remaining people dont care and speak both.
I have never met someone who doesn't speak Russian.
Then you haven't traveled broadly in Ukraine. And more importantly you're missing the point. The vast majority do speak and understand a reasonable amount of Russian (hence they will almost never object when you use it with them; they get that you're a foreigner and are doing the best you can) -- but they don't speak it fluently and comfortably, and it's not their preferred language in everyday use.
Only the elderly people have sometimes a mixed slang
It's more prevalent among the older set of course, but still this is just not true across the board. Surzhyk (or less pejoratively: Russian borrowings/breakings) are everywhere, though they are often subtle and it may take some training to detect them.
Part of the problem is that there are no well-defined boundaries (and there's only a barely defined notion of what constitutes "standard Ukrainian"). They're literally still in the process of cleaning up the nation's preeminent (and clearly Soviet-, if not exactly Surzhyk-influenced) dictionary.
There are some hardcore nationalists connected to Bandera (pro nazi group) that refuse to speak Russian
Now you're getting into pure BS territory.
This is obviously something you've read or something you've heard said a lot, but not something you know from direct observation.
Not a dog in the fight, at least this particular fight, but this might sound to many as "just learn the language of the oppressor". This gets thorny real quickly.
