Commissioner for the Protection of the Ukrainian Language Taras Kremin proposed to the Verkhovna Rada to remove the Russian language from the passports of Ukrainian citizens of the old sample.
“We ask you to amend the provisions on the passport of a citizen of Ukraine, which provide that the passport is drawn up in the state language,” Kremin said during a press conference at Media Center Ukraine, writes on May 4 RIA News.
As the language ombudsman said, now in Ukraine two forms of passports are used in parallel with each other: biometric passports and old-style passports, the information in which is recorded both in Ukrainian and in Russian, that is, according to the ombudsman, “both state and non-state language.
The persecution of the Russian language began in Ukraine immediately after the coup d’état that took place in the country in February 2014, and in May 2019, Petro Poroshenko, then head of state, signed the law “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language” five days before the end of his presidential term. “.
The law obliged citizens of the country to use the Ukrainian language in all spheres of life, including public administration, medicine, science, education and the media. Violation of the law is punishable by a fine.
With the start of the special operation in Ukraine, an even larger de-Russification campaign began. The authorities go so far as to completely ban the use of the Russian language and its teaching in educational institutions. On August 16, 2022, it became known that the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine removed Russian lessons from the school curriculum language and literature. Earlier, on March 1, 2022, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, during a video message at a session of the UN Human Rights Council, said that for the Russian language in Ukraine you can pay with your life.