The language has been stripped of protection under a key European Council convention<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday stripping Russian of its protection under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
\nOver the past decade, Ukraine has steadily restricted the use of Russian in public life, limiting or barring its use in media, education, government services, and in the service industry. However, it remains the first and primary language for many Ukrainians, especially in the east of the country and in large cities.
\n\u201cWe are removing Russian from the scope of protection,\u201d Culture Minister Tatyana Berezhnaya said in a statement following the vote in the Verkhovna Rada. She noted that 264 MPs supported the measure.
\nBerezhnaya argued that an earlier Ukrainian translation of the charter incorrectly interpreted the term \u2018minority\u2019, treating it as an ethnicity rather than a small language community.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe fixed it. Now the Ukrainian translation corresponds to the authentic content of the Charter,\u201d she wrote, adding that the decision will \u201cstrengthen Ukrainian as a state language.\u201d
\nAsked to comment on the amendment, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Kiev\u2019s policy of \u201cforced de-Russification has increasingly faltered and had the opposite effect.\u201d
\nTwo-thirds of students in Kiev don\u2019t speak Ukrainian in class, and 82% don\u2019t speak it during break time, she added, citing statistics published by Ukraine\u2019s language ombudsman website last month.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDespite all the bans, fines, bullying, harassment, persecution, and harassment, people don\u2019t want to forget their native Russian language and still want to speak it,\u201d Zakharova said, arguing that the trend is growing \u201cso obvious as to be impossible to hide.\u201d
\nMoscow has long condemned Ukraine\u2019s language policies
\nOne of Russia\u2019s key peace demands in the conflict is that Kiev repeal laws that violate the human rights of Russian speakers in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The language has been stripped of protection under a key European Council convention The Ukrainian parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday stripping Russian of its protection under the European Charter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t