DISINFO: Russia protecting Russian language in Ukraine
SUMMARY
Russia is protecting people and the Russian language, which has been targeted by direct discrimination and aggression by the Ukrainian regimes under ex-president Petro Poroshenko and the incumbent Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets justifying Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
In reality, Ukraine’s authorities do not oppress the Russian language, nor are they conducting genocide against the Russian-speaking population in the East. Such claims have been unequivocally debunked by independent Russian media, among others. None of the multiple reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine, which are regularly published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or the reports of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission come even close to referencing genocide in Ukraine.
Ukrainian law does not forbid the use of Russian nor any other languages in private communication and religious ceremonies, as well as in book publishing, the press, including radio and television, education and the service sector.
Furthermore, Ukraine is a signatory to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which guarantees that people in Ukraine have the right: "to use freely and without interference his or her minority language, in private and in public, orally and in writing."