Russian Prosecutors Say Kiev Keeps Discriminating Against Russian-Speaking Ukrainians

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd July, 2021) The Russian Prosecutor General's Office says in its inter-state complaint with a European court that Ukraine keeps discriminating against Russian-speaking residents with its illegal laws impeding the use of Russian language in the country where it is native for almost one-third of the population.

The prosecutor general said it has filed an inter-state complaint against Ukraine with the European Court of Human Rights. In a statement, the prosecutors say that the complaint refers to Kiev's "policy of discrimination against Russian-speaking residents, impeding the use of the Russian language in public life, first of all in secondary and higher education as well as consumer services."

"Ukraine is a multinational State, the Russian language is the native language for about one third (29.6 per cent) of its population. At the same time, the nationalistic government that took office in Ukraine in 2014 has been carrying out an administrative policy aimed at broad discrimination of the Russian-speaking population, intentional and constant suppression of such people in Ukraine, and the expulsion of the Russian language from the public sphere, primarily from secondary and higher education," the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said in additional materials on its website.

Both the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission condemned Ukraine's policy of "less favourable treatment of the Russian language," the prosecutors recalled.

Kiev's decisions to fire teachers of humanities from educational institutions for using Russian language or criticizing the Ukrainian authorities, and practices aimed at undermining the rights of Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine to use the Russian language in public or other institutions gravely violate the European Convention on Human Rights, the document said.

Russia requested the ECHR to apply interim measures to oblige Ukraine to immediately end "flagrant violations" such as "restricting the rights of national and linguistic minorities, including the right to free access to secondary and higher education in their native languages, banning Russian-language television and radio broadcasters, restricting access to Russian-language online platforms and printed media."

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office also mentioned in its complaint Ukraine's politically motivated prosecution of Russian businesses and entrepreneurs, in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

"A number of major Russian companies in the energy, banking and telecommunications sectors and/or their subsidiaries ... had to cease operations on the Ukrainian market, which caused them significant material damage," the prosecutors said.

Over the past several years, Ukraine has been actively pursuing the monolingual policy. In 2019, then-President Petro Poroshenko signed the law "On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" to promote the exclusive use of Ukrainian in almost all areas.