Situation with the Russian language in Ukraine

Last month, S. Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, gave an interview in which - among other things - he expressed the following thesis:

None of the Republicans who are voicing what is described as “revolutionary ideas” for ending the Ukraine conflict have said that people in Ukraine must regain their right to speak, receive education themselves and ensure the same for their children, as well as have access to information in the Russian language.

And in this article, I would like to examine in more detail the situation with the Russian language in Ukraine.

According to the results of the 2001 census, the only census conducted in Ukraine after it gained independence, 29.6% of respondents named Russian as their native language.

But the state language in Ukraine has always been Ukrainian.

However, for example, Switzerland has 4 official languages:

• German (spoken by 72.9% of Swiss)
• French (spoken by 23.3% of Swiss)
• Italian (spoken by 6.2% of Swiss)
• Romansh (spoken by 0.7% of Swiss)

Ireland has two official languages – Irish and English; Finland has two official languages too – Finnish and Swedish, although the latter is the native language of only 5% of the Finnish population.

In 2012, Ukraine adopted the Law “On the Fundamentals of State Language Policy,” which introduced the concept of a “regional language”—a language traditionally used within a certain territory by individuals whose number constitutes 10 percent or more of the population of that territory.

The regional language could be used - along with the Ukrainian language - in the work of local self-government bodies, could be used and studied in state and municipal educational institutions and used in other areas of public life. In addition, the above-mentioned law declared the free use of regional languages - along with the state language - in such areas as the economic and social activities of enterprises, institutions, organizations, private entrepreneurs, associations of citizens, education, science, culture, information technology, media and communications, advertising.

On February 23, 2014, immediately after the illegal removal of President Yanukovych from power, the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) voted to repeal the Law on the Fundamentals of State Language Policy. But the so-called "acting President of Ukraine" Oleksandr Turchynov said that he would not sign the Parliament's decision to repeal this law until the Verkhovna Rada adopted a new law.

And later, the Law of Ukraine "On the Fundamentals of State Language Policy" was completely repealed and replaced by the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language", adopted under Poroshenko in 2019, and the Law "On Complete General Secondary Education", adopted under Zelenskyy in 2020.

These laws significantly restricted the rights of ethnic minorities to use their languages, including their use in the field of education.

However, some ethnic minorities living in the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime simply refused to comply with these laws, which had been adopted by the Verkhovna Rada.

Zelenskyy did not dare to open another front, for example, against the Hungarians in Transcarpathia. And so, at the end of last year, Zelenskyy's faction in the Ukrainian parliament voted for some changes.

Now Hungarians, Romanians and other ethnic minorities, whose languages are official languages of the EU, again have the right to receive complete secondary education in their native language in state and municipal schools.

It turns out that, on the one hand, the Ukrainian authorities have recognized the incorrectness of their own language policy towards ethnic minorities and have changed this policy.

But, on the other hand, these changes, unfortunately, have not yet affected the Russian language.