diff --git a/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py b/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py
index c337b9bc3..63aa94a36 100644
--- a/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py
+++ b/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py
@@ -23,15 +23,16 @@ class RussianLemmatizer(Lemmatizer):
         mode: str = "pymorphy2",
         overwrite: bool = False,
     ) -> None:
-        try:
-            from pymorphy2 import MorphAnalyzer
-        except ImportError:
-            raise ImportError(
-                "The Russian lemmatizer requires the pymorphy2 library: "
-                'try to fix it with "pip install pymorphy2"'
-            ) from None
-        if RussianLemmatizer._morph is None:
-            RussianLemmatizer._morph = MorphAnalyzer()
+        if mode == "pymorphy2":
+            try:
+                from pymorphy2 import MorphAnalyzer
+            except ImportError:
+                raise ImportError(
+                    "The Russian lemmatizer mode 'pymorphy2' requires the "
+                    "pymorphy2 library. Install it with: pip install pymorphy2"
+                ) from None
+            if RussianLemmatizer._morph is None:
+                RussianLemmatizer._morph = MorphAnalyzer()
         super().__init__(vocab, model, name, mode=mode, overwrite=overwrite)
 
     def pymorphy2_lemmatize(self, token: Token) -> List[str]:
diff --git a/spacy/lang/uk/lemmatizer.py b/spacy/lang/uk/lemmatizer.py
index 0b4435a21..e1fdf39fc 100644
--- a/spacy/lang/uk/lemmatizer.py
+++ b/spacy/lang/uk/lemmatizer.py
@@ -18,14 +18,15 @@ class UkrainianLemmatizer(RussianLemmatizer):
         mode: str = "pymorphy2",
         overwrite: bool = False,
     ) -> None:
-        try:
-            from pymorphy2 import MorphAnalyzer
-        except ImportError:
-            raise ImportError(
-                "The Ukrainian lemmatizer requires the pymorphy2 library and "
-                "dictionaries: try to fix it with "
-                '"pip install pymorphy2 pymorphy2-dicts-uk"'
-            ) from None
-        if UkrainianLemmatizer._morph is None:
-            UkrainianLemmatizer._morph = MorphAnalyzer(lang="uk")
+        if mode == "pymorphy2":
+            try:
+                from pymorphy2 import MorphAnalyzer
+            except ImportError:
+                raise ImportError(
+                    "The Ukrainian lemmatizer mode 'pymorphy2' requires the "
+                    "pymorphy2 library and dictionaries. Install them with: "
+                    "pip install pymorphy2 pymorphy2-dicts-uk"
+                ) from None
+            if UkrainianLemmatizer._morph is None:
+                UkrainianLemmatizer._morph = MorphAnalyzer(lang="uk")
         super().__init__(vocab, model, name, mode=mode, overwrite=overwrite)
diff --git a/spacy/tests/conftest.py b/spacy/tests/conftest.py
index 04e254c50..c6be15189 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/conftest.py
@@ -281,6 +281,13 @@ def uk_tokenizer():
     return get_lang_class("uk")().tokenizer
 
 
+@pytest.fixture
+def uk_lemmatizer():
+    pytest.importorskip("pymorphy2")
+    pytest.importorskip("pymorphy2_dicts_uk")
+    return get_lang_class("uk")().add_pipe("lemmatizer")
+
+
 @pytest.fixture(scope="session")
 def ur_tokenizer():
     return get_lang_class("ur")().tokenizer
diff --git a/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_lemmatizer.py b/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_lemmatizer.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4a0d91f7e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spacy/tests/lang/uk/test_lemmatizer.py
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+import pytest
+from spacy.tokens import Doc
+
+
+def test_uk_lemmatizer(uk_lemmatizer):
+    """Check that the default uk lemmatizer runs."""
+    doc = Doc(uk_lemmatizer.vocab, words=["a", "b", "c"])
+    uk_lemmatizer(doc)