Ukraine removes Russian language from list of protected minority languages
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a law removing Russian from the list of languages protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on June 12 that excludes the Russian language from the list of languages protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The move comes more than half a year after the Ukrainian parliament passed the bill.
Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk stated that Ukraine respects linguistic diversity but does not see it possible to grant a special status to the language of an aggressor state. Simultaneously, the Moldovan language was also removed from the list, as it is no longer recognized as a separate language at the official level.
The updated list now includes 18 languages of national minorities and indigenous peoples, among them Belarusian, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, and Crimean Tatar. The European Charter allows states to determine which languages receive state support and protection.
