Franz Klintsevich
Submitted to the Parliament the legislative initiative about the exclusivity of the Ukrainian language would weaken the position of Kiev in the Donbass, said the first Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on defense and security Frants Klintsevich. This is stated in the statement of the Senator admitted to “a Ribbon.ru” on Sunday, January 22.
“Genocide of the Russian language — so I described the essence of the bill about the exclusivity of the Ukrainian language, submitted to the Verkhovna Rada”, — said Klintsevich. However, he noted that the authors of the document are not two or three people, and more than 30 deputies from different factions. According to the Senator, it “makes the picture even more depressing”.
“Whatever it is, nationalist fervor is a bad adviser. The adoption of this bill — a direct path to the final loss of Ukraine’s Donbas, where the vast majority of Russian-speaking population”, — said the first Deputy Chairman of the Committee.
The day before, on January 21 it became known that in the Verkhovna Rada a bill, according to which the Ukrainian language should be mandatory for all state power bodies and local self-government, as well as in preschool, school, out-of-school and higher educational institutions. The document provides for the use of the Ukrainian language into all cultural events, in the service sector, media and publishing.
The bill, if adopted, will lead to the abolition of the law “On principles of state language policy”, which involves the use of two official languages in 13 of 27 regions of the country. After the coup in 2014 Rada recognized the law as invalid, which caused unrest in the South and South-East of Ukraine. At that time the acting President Oleksandr Turchynov refused to sign the law. The constitutional court examines the case on the constitutionality of the document.