The official language in Ukraine should be protected, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said.
Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Rybak has said that the issue of the status of the Russian language should be carefully studied by experts, including at the level of the Constitutional Assembly.
In a country long dominated by the Russian language, Ukrainians have struggled to defend their native tongue for centuries. But two decades of independence and official status doesn't mean the fight is over, with Russian often gaining the upper hand.
A state program for the development of the Ukrainian language will be approved soon, and the 2013 national budget will foresee funding for it, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said.
Lviv regional council has declared the law "On the principles of state language policy" invalid on the territory of the region.
STRASBOURG – A well-known Russian writer Boris Akunin (Grigory Chkhartishvili), who visited the Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Sevastopol recently, has said that these cities look like they belong to different countries, and added that it was abnormal for people in one country " not being eager to" speak Ukrainian.
ODESA – The law on the principles of the state language policy will not be cancelled, but could be amended, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said in Odesa.
Romanian has been declared a regional language in the Village of Bila Tserkva (Biserica Alba in Romanian) in Rakhiv district of Zakarpattia region. The language will be used in office work and administrative documents.
There should be no discussions in Kyiv regarding giving the Russian language a regional status, Head of Kyiv City State Administration Oleksandr Popov has reported.
Dnipropetrovsk City Council deputies at a session on Wednesday voted for the implementation of the provisions of the law on the principles of state language policy in Dnipropetrovsk.
Mykolaiv Regional Council has decided to assign Russian the status of a regional language in the region.
A member of the Regions Party parliamentary faction, Vadym Kolesnichenko, has said that the law of Ukraine on the principles of the state language policy was adopted without consideration of proposals submitted by the Justice Ministry of Ukraine, the OSCE, the Venice Commission, and the parliament's experts, and blamed the opposition for this.
Luhansk – Deputies of Luhansk City Council have declared Russian a regional language in the city.
The leader of the Regions Party faction in the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksandr Yefremov, has said that the new Ukrainian parliament could adopt a new language law to replace the current one.
The Ukrainian Communist Party will not support any amendments to the country's language policy, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko has said.
LVIV - The Lviv City Council has passed a draft appeal to Ukraine's Constitutional Court asking the latter whether individual points of the law "On the Fundamentals of the State Policy on Languages" are in tune with the Ukrainian constitution.
Demonstrations in support of the Russian and Ukrainian languages are being held on Thursday opposite the building of Kharkiv Regional Council.
The adoption of the law on the principles of state language policy could destabilize the education system in Ukraine, Director of the Education Monitoring Center Pavlo Poliansky has said.
LVIV – Lviv City Council will hold an extraordinary meeting dedicated to the adoption of the law on the principles of the state language policy on August 30, the Council's press service reported.
Russia is ready help Ukrainian educational institutions to use the potential of the law on the principles of state language policy to the maximum extent, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov has said.