Press Secretary of the President of Ukraine Yulia Mendel announced the existence of the "Ukrainian Russian language", which she called a part of the country's cultural diversity.
She announced this on the air of the Dom TV channel, created for residents of the uncontrolled territories of Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian language, like identity, is much more than just confrontation with Russia.
And this is our so far unconscious wealth.
And Russian, more precisely, Ukrainian Russian, is part of the cultural diversity of our country, ”Mendel said.
According to her, both now and before, “Russian was not and is not exclusively the property of Russia.
“Russia is not a monopoly on the Russian language,” said a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian president, calling for “demonopolizing” Russian.
At the same time, Mendel admitted that after "the law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language," adopted at the height of the 2019 election race, "the whole country has not yet begun to speak Ukrainian."
She also expressed regret that the language, which is "the unconditional symbol of modern Ukraine", is too often "openly used by individual politicians to organize their speculations, ... conflicts, especially in the pursuit of voters for the next elections."
“The closer the elections, the more aggressive, the more stubborn these politicians have in an effort to push their heads against Ukrainians who speak Ukrainian and Ukrainians who speak Russian.
Speculations about the language are such a hypocritical way to keep political fans, and this has been going on for quite some time, ”Zelenskiy's spokeswoman said.
Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council of Russia Konstantin Kosachev reacted to Mendel's statement, reminding Kiev that the Russian language has long been "demonopolized" - it is one of the main world languages and the official language of the UN.
The senator also noted that, judging by the position held, "Ms. Mendel does not mold a gag," although so far "Ukrainian official propaganda has not reached this point."
“This is what we have reached - so it is to the point that by the beginning of the current academic year in Ukraine there was not a single (!) School with the Russian language of instruction (for reference: in 1991 there were about 22 thousand schools in the Ukrainian SSR, and half of they were schools with the Russian language of instruction. Even earlier, all kindergartens with the Russian language were withdrawn from the state circulation), "Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page.
Earlier, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov called the Russian language "Slobozhansky" and said that it does not belong to the Russian Federation.
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov
Reuters
© Valentyn Ogirenko
“The Russian language, or as I call it, the Slobozhansky language, in our case, it does not belong to Russia ... The Russian language culture largely belongs to the Ukrainians too,” the minister said in an interview with journalist Dmitry Gordon.
Avakov also spoke about the need to create and distribute Russian-speaking Ukrainian TV channels around the world.
Language restrictions
Recall that the law "On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in the spring of 2019.
Later it was signed by Petro Poroshenko, who was then the president of Ukraine.
The law came into force in the summer of the same year, but not completely - its individual norms are being introduced in stages.
First, the country's population was obliged to speak Ukrainian in all public spheres of public life.
In addition, it was also allowed to conduct all cultural events, shoot films and television programs only in the state language.
Later, in January 2020, Kiev Ukrainianized advertising, and later sanctioned the publication of scientific publications in Ukrainian, English or in the official languages of the European Union (but in these cases with an annotation in Ukrainian).
At the same time, the preparation of medical documents was translated into Ukrainian.
At the same time, the names of stops, stations, ports and airports were obliged to write exclusively in Ukrainian, only duplication in Latin is allowed.
On January 16 this year, Article 30 of the Law on the State Language entered into force in Ukraine.
Since that date, the entire service sector, including supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, sports clubs, hairdressers, has been transferred to the use of the Ukrainian language.
The innovations concern not only employees, who now have to address customers exclusively in Ukrainian, but also information about goods and services on price tags, instructions, labels, markings, etc.
For failure to comply with the innovations, penalties are provided.
Thus, according to the Ukrainian ombudsperson for the protection of the state language Taras Kremin, if violations during the year "will be repeated and have a systemic character," a fine of 5100-6800 hryvnia will be imposed, which is equivalent to 13-18 thousand rubles.
According to Kremin, this "will hit not so much in the pockets of the business as in the reputation."
"And this is exactly what has been accumulating over the years," said his statement posted on the government's website.
It is worth noting that the fine will begin on July 16, 2022.
The law on state language presupposes the creation of a special "language commission", the purpose of which is to monitor the mandatory use of the Ukrainian language in public spheres of life.
The latest innovations were opposed by a number of entrepreneurs, public figures and deputies.
In addition, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, commenting on the entry into force of certain provisions of the law on the state language in winter, called on Kiev "to immediately adopt a law on the protection of the rights of national minorities, which will directly protect their language rights."
This is stated in the report of the organization.
Representatives of the Communist Party of Ukraine take part in a demonstration dedicated to the International Day of Workers' Solidarity
RIA News
© Grigory Vasilenko
“OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. -
RT
) recommends that the aforementioned law directly protect the linguistic rights of national minorities, including by amending the laws“ On the State Language ”,“ On Education ”and“ On the Complete General Secondary education ”, as required by international human rights law and as recommended by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission).
OHCHR also recommends that this law be developed in consultation and with the participation of all stakeholders, including different linguistic minorities and gender balanced representation, ”the report says.
"Pursues a policy of linguocide"
As the deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University Volodymyr Shapovalov noted, the words of Zelensky's press secretary about the “Ukrainian Russian language” are “far from the first meaningless statement” on the part of Kiev.
“Prior to that, Arsen Avakov, as well as a number of other politicians, tried to talk about some kind of special Eastern Ukrainian language, Slobozhansk.
In fact, the Ukrainian authorities are simply embarrassed to call everything by their proper names and finally admit that there is a great Russian language - one of the most important languages in the world, in which a huge number of literary and scientific works have been created, ”he said in an interview with RT.
But it is even more painful for Kiev to realize that a significant number of Ukrainians speak Russian, which is the basis of world culture, Shapovalov said.
“Kiev is deliberately trying to come up with some artificial constructions about Ukrainian Russian instead of recognizing the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians to freely use their native language.
The Ukrainian authorities stubbornly refuse to notice that a significant part of the population, for whom Russian is the main language of communication, is being oppressed.
After all, then it will be necessary to stop the persecution of the Russian language, which is absolutely unacceptable from the point of view of the ruling authorities, ”the expert noted.
Director of the Institute for Peacekeeping Initiatives and Conflictology Denis Denisov called, in turn, “manipulative” Kiev's statements that the Russian language is part of Ukraine's heritage.
"These hypocritical statements are needed by the Ukrainian side to hide the absolute inaction to protect Russian-speaking residents and the Russian language at the state level," he said in a conversation with RT.
As the representative of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in the political subgroup of the contact group on Donbass, Rodion Miroshnik, said, Mendel's words are "another bluff that borders on severe psychological pathology."
“Kiev has taken a number of steps to squeeze the Russian language out of all spheres of life of Ukrainians.
And these new attacks by the authorities indicate the lack of strategic thinking, understanding of the basic principles of the existence of the people of Ukraine, for whom the Russian language has always been, is and will be one of the key ones, including as a factor in the existence of this ethnic group, "he stressed in a commentary on RT.
Deputy of the People's Council of the DPR Miroslav Rudenko drew attention to the fact that Mendel made her statement on the Dom TV channel, which broadcasts for residents of the LPR and DPR, and it was “no coincidence”.
“This media outlet is purely a propaganda project, and an extremely unsuccessful one.
Its content is built without taking into account the realities of the existence of Donbass.
The fact that he is in Russian does not mean anything yet.
Things are broadcast there that are immediately perceived with hostility by the inhabitants of the LPR and DPR.
Especially against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the LPR and DPR, "he said in an interview with RT.
Shapovalov, for his part, stressed that at the moment Ukraine is "pursuing a policy of linguocide."
“The Ukrainian authorities do not even think of the idea that it is necessary to make Russian the official language of communication, including in administrative state structures, to return education in Russian.
Only in case of such changes will Ukraine confirm its status as a democratic state, ”the analyst said.
However, instead of this, Kiev is waging an even tougher struggle with the Russian, masking its actions with "ridiculous arguments about the need to demonopolize this language," Shapovalov emphasized.
Meeting of the first plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada in 2021
RIA News
“Thus, the Ukrainian authorities are trying in an absolutely hypocritical way to cover up their real policy of destroying the Russian-speaking space in Ukraine.
In fact, now in this country you can get blacklisted and lose your job due to the use of the Russian language in everyday life.
And of course, this is one of the large-scale manifestations of discrimination on ethnic and linguistic grounds that exist in the modern world, ”the expert believes.
As Shapovalov predicted, if a radical change of political elites does not take place in Ukraine, "the course towards the complete destruction of the Russian-speaking cultural space will continue."
“There is no hope that the current government will change its real policy on the language issue,” he said.
Denisov, in turn, noted that the real use of the Russian language in Ukraine will only be reduced by Kiev.
“All restrictions on the Russian language will be preserved and strengthened.
At the same time, the Ukrainian media will discuss how the Ukrainian authorities respect the rights of Russian-speaking citizens.
All this is nothing more than duplicity, which no longer surprises anyone.
Kiev considers this approach to be the most convenient for itself, ”the analyst concluded.