Ukrainian parliament – Verkhovna Rada – adopted the law “Providing the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the official one,” which discriminates all the other languages in the country. This decision was backed by 278 MPs.

Ukraine’s neighbors have a right to criticize a new Ukrainian law banning schools from teaching in minority languages beyond primary school level, the Venice Commission concluded.

“The Ukrainian language is a symbol of our people, our state and our nation,” Poroshenko wrote. “It is another important step on the way toward our intellectual independence,“ Poroshenko wrote.

Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook after the announcement of the voting results, calling today’s decision a historic one, comparing it to the reconstruction of the Ukrainian army and the reception of independence of Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Moscow.

“Today was a truly historic event. 278 Parliamentarians adopted the law “on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a government”. Thanks to the people’s Deputies for the very important law for Ukraine, for a clear state-owned position!” the President wrote in his Twitter micro blog.

As of 2015, Ukraine had 621 schools that taught in Russian, 78 in Romanian, 68 in Hungarian and five in Polish, according to education ministry data. According to different polls Russian is the native language of 30% of Ukraine‘s population.

Previously in December 2017 a leading European rights watchdog – the Venice Commission said “…The strong domestic and international criticism drawn especially by the provisions reducing the scope of education in minority languages seems justified,”

Image: children in folk costumes, Lvov, Ukraine.