Russian language faced eradication - Ukrainian PM
KYIV. Aug 14 (Interfax) - Ukraine will develop a program for supporting the Ukrainian language while guaranteeing protection for minority languages, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said.
"No one is against Ukrainian. On the contrary, we will now be drafting a major program for supporting the Ukrainian language. This has to be done (. . .) One needs to support Ukrainian. But we will not let anyone eradiate all the languages of the peoples inhabiting Ukraine," the prime minister said at a meeting with local residents in Odessa on Tuesday.
"We passed the law (on the foundations of the state language policy) and will now be consolidating it in regulatory documents (. . .) I know that yesterday your (Odessa) city council passed a relevant resolution and the regional council will do so soon. This is how it will be in everything where there is a need for that. And the need is there because the Russian language was being eradicated (. . .) and this had to be rectified. This lopsidedness had to be tackled," Azarov said.
It was reported that during its extraordinary session on August 13 the Odessa city council approved the resolution "On the implementation of the provisions of the Ukrainian law 'On the foundations of the state language policy' in the city of Odessa," thus making Russian a regional language in the city.
From now on Russian can be used in the city as a regional language in document management, official documents, at schools and universities, in advertising and municipal toponymy and so on, according to the city council resolution.