In Ukraine, a complete ban on the use of the Russian language in the media will enter into force in three months, said Taras Kremin, Kyiv’s state language protection commissioner.
Ukraine has been a bilingual country since independence, with most citizens speaking or understanding both Russian and Ukrainian. After the 2014 US-backed coup in Kyiv, the new nationalist authorities adopted a policy of suppressing the Russian language, citing national unity and security.
Among the restrictions is that national media must predominantly use the Ukrainian language in their programs. The permitted percentage of Russian-language content has decreased from 40 percent in 2016 to an almost complete ban, which will come into effect in July – this deadline was referred to in Kremin’s statement on Wednesday.
“Today, national television channels broadcast bilingual Ukrainian-Russian programs in which the actors use the Russian language without translation or subtitles,” he said.
“As of July 17, this practice will cease.”
The effort of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi leaders to impose the state language on the Russian-speaking people living in the eastern part of the country was one of the main reasons why the locals rejected the power after the coup. One of the first measures taken by the junta in Kyiv was to repeal a law passed in 2012 that gave the Russian language official regional status.
The new authorities passed laws aimed at eradicating the Russian language from all areas of public life, including education, entertainment and even services provided by private businesses.
In an interview last year, Kremin denied that some Ukrainian citizens could be called Russian speakers, describing the term as “an adjective introduced by Russian ideology” and stating that “everyone in the country should know the Ukrainian language.”
By contrast, this week the leader of another post-Soviet country, Kazakhstan, rejected the idea that one language spoken by its people should be favored over others.
“Young people today are fluent in the state language [kazah] language, the Russian language, English and other languages, and that’s good,” President Kashim-Zomart Tokayev said on Tuesday.
“It is ridiculous to incite hysteria over a language, let alone fight against it, as has been done in some other states. We can all see the results.”
The Kazakh leader did not specify which other states he was targeting.
