The language has been stripped of protection under a key European Council convention

FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian Parliament, Kiev, Ukraine. © Getty Images / Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu

The Ukrainian parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday stripping Russian of its protection under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Over 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.

“We are removing Russian from the scope of protection,” Culture Minister Tatyana Berezhnaya said in a statement following the vote in the Verkhovna Rada. She noted that 264 MPs supported the measure.

Berezhnaya argued that an earlier Ukrainian translation of the charter incorrectly interpreted the term ‘minority’, treating it as an ethnicity rather than a small language community.

 

READ MORE: EU Charter behind halt in Kiev’s attempt to ban Russian – media

“We fixed it. Now the Ukrainian translation corresponds to the authentic content of the Charter,” she wrote, adding that the decision will “strengthen Ukrainian as a state language.”

Asked to comment on the amendment, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Kiev’s policy of “forced de-Russification has increasingly faltered and had the opposite effect.”

Two-thirds of students in Kiev don’t speak Ukrainian in class, and 82% don’t speak it during break time, she added, citing statistics published by Ukraine’s language ombudsman website last month.

 

READ MORE: The West discovers Zelensky is not really a good guy

“Despite all the bans, fines, bullying, harassment, persecution, and harassment, people don’t want to forget their native Russian language and still want to speak it,” Zakharova said, arguing that the trend is growing “so obvious as to be impossible to hide.”

Moscow has long condemned Ukraine’s language policies

One of Russia’s key peace demands in the conflict is that Kiev repeal laws that violate the human rights of Russian speakers in the country.