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“RUSSIAN LANGUAGE INFRINGEMENT” SCANDAL IN UKRAINE27.09.06 Russians Are Indignant Over the Russian Language Discrimination The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Russian Federation is indignant over the situation with the Russian language in Ukraine. “Pursuers of Russian should become aware that Ukraine is historically bilingual country, so eradication of this language is an unproductive affair,” comments the MFA. Russian is persecuted particularly in the western Ukraine, where the language is discriminated not only officially but in daily life too. The MFA of Russia is discontented that Ukrainian politicians use the Russian language in their political games, igniting unhealthy commotion among population. It accuses the Ukrainian Justice Ministry of issuing the bill regarding the language policy containing some embarrassing wordings. Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc lawmakers also approved themselves as the Russian language foes, having rebuked the Verkhovna Rada Speaker Olexandr Moroz and Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy of not using Ukrainian in formal situations. 28.09.06 Ukrainian Foreign Ministry qualifies its Russian counterpart's statement about alleged suppression of Russian language in Ukraine as flagrant interference in Ukraine's internal affairs As Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk told a Thursday news conference in Kyiv, the Russian Foreign Ministry's statement about alleged discrimination against the Russian language in Ukraine reveals nothing new in Russia's stand on that issue. Rather, it is strange that the statement originated from the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mr Tarasyuk noted. He referred to the statement as an obvious interference in Ukraine's internal affairs. As Borys Tarasyuk noted, the Russian language problem occasionally surfaces in Ukrainian – Russian relations. Having called this "counter-productive and overpoliticized," Borys Tarasyuk noted with regret that the Russian side keeps fanning passions over this issue, which cannot but cause our concer. As Borys Tarasyuk disclosed, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry was supposed to issue an official statement to this effect on Thursday. 29.09.06 Ukrainian Foreign Ministry urges Russia to cease speculating on language, by way of influencing internal political situation in Ukraine The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is indignant about the tone and content of a commentary by the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department, which was made public on September 27, as for the so said discrimination of the Russian language in Ukraine. The teaching tone of the Russian Foreign Ministry, accusations and groundless arguments of the commentary can only be assessed as a regular attempt of direct interference in internal affairs of Ukraine, the statement by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's press service said. Thus, we resolutely reject any accusations toward the central authorities and local self-government bodies of allegedly discrimination of the Russian language in different spheres of the public life. Insisting on a special status of the Russian language in Ukraine, official Moscow forgets to mention that it runs the only state language, Russian, which is set in the Russian Constitution, the law on the state language and other legal norms. The Ukrainian language is set in the Constitution of Ukraine and relevant legal acts as the state language. Thus, by way of responding to the commentary by the Russian Foreign Ministry, we urge the Russian side to treat Ukrainian laws with respect, in compliance with the international practice. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said the Russian Foreign Ministry's accusations are destructive and urged to cease speculating on the language issue as a method of influencing the internal political situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reiterated that the Russian language issue is not on Ukrainian – Russian relations agenda, which fact should be kept in mind, while building mutually profitable, equal and partnership relations. COMMENT Language Diagnostics Tongue inspection is a part of human medical examination. The appearance of this organ gives signals about different problems in the organism, certain acute or chronic deseases. The tongue plays the role of a certain signal system. Any changes on its surface give us notice of more serious danger, since as a rule it’s not the tongue that needs treatment... The rise of demagogy on “Russian language infringement” doesn’t at all confirm the thesis that the question of language is the most painful for modern Ukraine. Usually it tells about the election approach and the necessity of some political forces to gather in the “elective harvest”. Although the nearest election will take place only in 2009, the last provocation, initiated by the Ministry of foreign affairs of RF, is fair connected with the elective process. It’s absolutely not by chance that the Russian diplomatic authority’s statement has coincided with activization of a somehow forgotten personality of the Ukrainian political life of the Presidential campaign 2004 – the Russian businessman Maksym Kurochkin. Apart from his participation in scandal “privatization” of certain objects, Mr. Kurochkin was known for establishing the so-called “Russian club” in Kyiv, openly supporting Viktor Yanukovych. Particularly the Russia-oriented initiatives of Mr.Yanukovych were announced at the club meetings, and they included the idea of dual nationality. During parliamentary elections of 2006 Kurochkin supported (financially as well) Nataliya Vitrenko Block. He told about it last week. It is very doubtful that the Russian businessman didn’t know that his statements made a disservice to the progressive socialists leader (financing of the elective campaign from abroad is prohibited by the Ukrainian legislation). But why then the politician, fighting against NATO entering, defending the Russian language rights, and even urging to pass to the RF the whole Ukrainian regions, has fallen into disgrace? Possibly, it concerns repartition of the elective niche occupied by Vitrenko today (let’s remind that her block needed only seven hundredth percent more to overcome the 3% barrier). It’s not hard to predict that in the nearest future the Region Party support will fall namely at the expense of those electors who considered the problems of Russian language introduction as the second national language and EES entering to be important during the election. Not only PSPU, but some other forces pretend to take these votes, which theoretically will easily help to overcome the passing barrier. The most influencing is SDPU (u), its leaders positioning themselves as the most logical Russian-oriented politicians in Ukraine. By the way, the figure of Viktor Medvedchuk is that “lost” stage that allows to explain the majority of latest events at “the battle-fronts for the Russian stuff in Ukraine”. Mass media repeatedly informed the public about his close cooperation with Maksym Kurochkin. Moreover, Medvedchuk’s ties with the Kremlin allow him to organize such a “trifle” as the Russian MFA statement on “the language question”. In case if the above-mentioned suggestions are true, Ukraine will experience hard times, since after the language problem a range of other painful problems will be very actively discussed in order to support a new Russia-oriented project. Namely, we should expect the return to the idea of immediate referendum on the problem of NATO joining, provocations in the field of interconfession relations etc. Mr.Medvedchuk is firmly established as the “crisis manager”, so his return on the peak of Ukrainian policy will be inevitably connected with exacerbation of crisis. Editorial
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