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.
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.