President plans to nullify state status of the Ukrainian language

President Viktor Yanukovych plans to nullify the state status of the Ukrainian language.

"It’s clear that Yanukovych can’t change the Constitution and introduce Russian as the de jure state language. Therefore, his strategy is to simply ignore existing language legislation and gradually nullify the state status of Ukrainian," Yulia Tymoshenko’s advisor Oleh Medvedev has said, reports the BYuT press service.

"Russian has already become the de facto state language and not even the second, because Yanukovych has put together a Russian speaking administration and he’s trying to unconstitutionally push through a personal who doesn’t speak a word of Ukrainian to the prime minister’s post."

However, Yulia Tymoshenko’s advisor did say that Viktor Yanukovych’s statement that Ukrainian should be the only state language is a victory for the opposition.

"The point of Ukrainian being the state language is not to disparage Russia speakers, but to expand the use of Ukrainian to a level not lower than Russian," Oleh Medvedev said.