Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy DanilovKIEV, Feb 1Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said that it is «dangerous» to use the Russian language in the world, since the Kremlin protects not only Russians, but also Russian speakers. So Danilov commented on Russia's position to protect not only Russian citizens, but also Russian speakers. , as for the speech of Mr. (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei — ed.) Lavrov, I would like to refer to his other words, when he said that they do not protect Russians, they protect Russian-speakers. Therefore, using the Russian language is a very dangerous thing in the world » , — he said on the air of the ICTV channel. Earlier, Lavrov advised the West to pay attention to the threats of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky against Russians and Russian speakers in Ukraine, and not to the mythical escalation of the situation around Ukraine, which is attributed to Russia. The state language in Ukraine is Ukrainian. At the same time, the constitution guarantees the free development, use and protection of Russian and other languages of national minorities. The Ukrainian parliament adopted the law «On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language» on April 25, 2019. Its articles are being implemented in stages. The document provides for the use of the Ukrainian language exclusively in almost all spheres of life. For this, a special «language commission» was created, and the position of an authorized person for its protection was introduced.The head of the British Foreign Office contracted the coronavirus on the eve of a visit to Ukraine. The same law proposed to introduce exams for officials that determine the level of knowledge of the Ukrainian language, and fines for violating the law. The fine ranges from 5.1 thousand to 6.8 thousand hryvnia (from 185 to 247 dollars). In June 2019, 51 deputies of the Verkhovna Rada applied to the Constitutional Court with a request to declare the law unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court, however, considered that the law does not violate the linguistic rights of national minorities, and any encroachment on its legal status threatens the national security of the country. mass media. According to the new rules, all Ukrainian print media can now be published and distributed in a foreign language only if a print run in the state language is also published at the same time. At the same time, in each place of their distribution, publications in Ukrainian should make up at least 50% of the entire range. The law on the state language was sharply criticized by both the Ukrainian opposition and Russian politicians. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, Kiev, by adopting discriminatory laws against the Russian language, deliberately sows discord among its citizens. In addition, at the end of January, the Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Vadym Gutzeit said that Ukrainian athletes were advised not to stand next to with the Russians during any events at the Olympic Games in order to avoid provocations. A source told RIA Novosti that Ukrainians were strongly advised to avoid joint photos with Russian athletes and not to give interviews in Russian. to Ukraine
