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East Slavic refers to a group of closely related languages spoken by people in eastern parts of the Slavic-speaking world, including Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. These languages are important for understanding the cultural and linguistic diversity of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
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The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Siberia and the Russian Far East. In part due to the large historical influence of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the Russian language is also spoken as a lingua franca in many regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Of the three Slavic branches, East Slavic is the most spoken, with the number of native speakers larger than the Western and Southern branches combined.
The common consensus is that Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian are the extant East Slavic languages. Some linguists also consider Rusyn a separate language, although it is sometimes considered a dialect of Ukrainian.