Ukraine abolishes protected status for Russian language

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a new law revoking the protected status of the Russian language within the country. The legislation asserts that the language of an "aggressor state" should not benefit from protections intended for indigenous peoples or national minorities, according to Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.

This move is framed as a critical step to safeguard Ukraine's linguistic space. Previously, under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which Ukraine ratified, Russian enjoyed special rights. Before the full-scale invasion, nearly a third of Ukrainians identified Russian as their mother tongue, though surveys suggest this proportion has decreased since the war began.

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The language of an aggressor state cannot benefit from protection instruments designed to help indigenous peoples or national minorities.

The new regulation does not criminalize speaking Russian in Ukraine. However, it removes the obligation for authorities to offer information and services in Russian. Furthermore, the law permits restrictions on Russian-language instruction in schools, potentially impacting the educational landscape for Russian speakers.

Moscow has frequently cited alleged discrimination against Russian speakers in various countries, including the Baltic states, as a pretext for its foreign policy actions. The protection of the Russian language was also a key argument used by Moscow to support the separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine starting in 2014.

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This is an important decision to protect the Ukrainian linguistic space.