MOSCOW, Nov. 11 Deputies of the Kyiv City Council decided to completely exclude Russian language from the curricula of kindergartens and secondary schools owned by the city.
«The capital will completely exclude the Russian language from the curricula of communal institutions of preschool and general secondary education. <…> The draft decision provides for the implementation of organizational and legal actions aimed at the transition of groups and classes from Russian to the state language,» the message on the Council's website reads.
As Vadim Vasilchuk, deputy of the city council, chairman of the permanent commission on education and science, family, youth and sports, said, in the context of the conflict with Russia, the issue of language is a matter of national security. He noted that now it is inappropriate and wrong to conduct education and study the Russian language.
According to the Kyiv deputies, this decision will help avoid escalation of tension in society.As the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov stated, the Russian language should «completely disappear» in the country. He called the idea that it is necessary to reach an understanding with Russian-speaking Ukrainians very dangerous for the state. At the same time, he considers the compulsory knowledge of English to be correct.
In recent years, the use of the Russian language has been massively banned in Ukraine, the authorities enshrining this at the legislative level. So, from September 1, it is forbidden to use it in the schools of Nikolaev.
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. In 2019, the Rada adopted the law «On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language». The document provides for a phased transition exclusively to the Ukrainian language in almost all spheres of life.
As stated by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Kyiv, by adopting discriminatory laws against the Russian language, deliberately sows discord among its citizens. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out that the Ukrainian authorities have been pursuing a policy of aggressive de-Russification for many years.