Russian Language in Ukraine - Russian Language in Ukrainian Politics - Second Official Language?

Second Official Language?

The issue of Russian receiving status of second official language has been the subject of extended controversial discussion ever since Ukraine became independent in 1991. In every Ukrainian election, many politicians, such as former president Leonid Kuchma, used their promise of making Russian a second state language to win support. The current President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych continued this practice when he was opposition leader. But in an interview with Kommersant during the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election-campaign he stated that the statued of Russian in Ukraine "is too politicized" and said that if elected President in 2010 he would "have a real opportunity to adopt a law on languages, which implements the requirements of the European Charter of regional languages". He implied these law would need 226 votes in the Ukrainian parliament (50% of the votes instead of the 75% of the votes needed to change the constitution of Ukraine). After his early 2010 election as President Yanukovych stated (on March 9, 2010) "Ukraine will continue to promote the Ukrainian language as its only state language". At the same time he stressed that it also necessary to develop other regional languages.

Former president Viktor Yushchenko, during his 2004 Presidential campaign, also claimed a willingness to introduce more equality for Russian speakers. His clipping service spread an announcement of his promise to make Russian language proficiency obligatory for officials who interact with Russian-speaking citizens. In 2005 Yushchenko stated that he had never signed this decree project. The controversy was seen by some as a deliberate policy of Ukrainization.

In 2006 the Kharkiv City Rada was the first to declare Russian to be a regional language. Following that, almost all southern and eastern oblasts (Luhansk, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts), and major cities (Sevastopol, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Yalta, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kryvyi Rih, Odessa) followed suit. By ruling of several courts, decision to change the status of the Russian language in the cities of Kryvyi Rih, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia and Mykolaiv have been overturned while in Donetsk, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv oblasts it was retained. According to survey by "Research and Branding group" (June 2006) the majority of the interviewed supported the decisions of local authorities: 52% largely supported (including 69% of population of eastern oblasts and 56% of southern regions), 34% largely did not support the decisions, 9% - answered "partially support and partially not", 5% had no opinion.

According to an all-Ukrainian poll carried out in February 2008 by "Ukrainian Democratic Circle" 15% of those polled said that the language issue should be immediately solved, in November 2009 this was 14.7%; in the November 2009 poll 35.8% wanted both the Russian and Ukrainian language to be state languages.

According to polling by RATING the level of support for granting Russian the status of the state language has decreased (from 54% to 46%) and the number of opponents has increased (from 40% to 45%) since 2009 (till May 2012); in July 2012 41% of respondents supported granting Russian the status of the state language and 51% opposed it. (In July 2012) among the biggest supporters of bilingualism where residents of the Donets Basin (85%), South Ukraine (72%) and East Ukraine (50%). A further poll conducted by RATING in September-October of 2012 found 51% opposed granting official status to the Russian language, whereas 41% supported it. The largest regions of support were Donbas (75%), southern (72%) and eastern (53%), whereas nearly 70% of northern and central Ukraine, and 90% of western Ukraine were in opposition.