Page 16 - UKRRptMay19

rights of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. The country is broadly divided into the Ukrainian-speaking western provinces and Russian-speaking eastern provinces. Russian is widely spoken and is even the predominant working language in the capital Kyiv.
Outgoing President Petro Poroshenko said he will sign the bill into law as one of his last acts as president before he steps down in June.
"The Ukrainian language is a symbol of our people, our state and our nation," Poroshenko wrote his Facebook page immediately after the vote on the law. "It is another important step on the way toward our mental independence."
The law was passed in its first reading on October 4 last year and 2,500 amendments were suggested for the second reading -- most of which were rejected.
The law "Providing the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the official one" stipulates that Ukrainian is the sole official language in the country. Attempts to introduce other languages (ie Russian) as an official language are recognized as "directed at the forcible change or overthrow of the constitutional regime" by the new law.
The concept of "public degradation of the Ukrainian language" has also been introduced in the new law, which has been made a crime and an "illegal action which equals abuse of the state symbols of Ukraine and is punished under the law."
The law also calls for a new post of Commissioner for the Official Language Protection, appointed by the cabinet of ministers. Language inspectors working under the commissioner will monitor compliance with the law.
The law also introduces a language proficiency requirement for top government jobs, including that of president. Zelenskiy speaks Ukrainian, but he is already reportedly looking for a teacher to improve his language skills.
Other senior officers that will be required to speak good Ukrainian include: Verkhovna Rada speaker and his deputies, members of the cabinet of ministers, heads of central executive bodies that are not members of the government and their deputies, chairman of the Security Service, prosecutor general, head of the National Bank, members of the Audit Chamber, Verkhovna Rada commissioner for human rights, commissioner for official language protection, parliamentary members, members of local councils and village, town and city heads, reports TASS.
Those who violate the language law norms may face fines of up to UAH11,900 ($450) but those that try and introduce “multilingualism” can be jailed.
The language law comes hard on the heels of a decree signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin on April 24 that eases the process of obtaining a Russian passport for inhabitant of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine that is widely seen as a Russian provocation of the new Zelenskiy administration.
The passport decree is seen by some as a warning to Kyiv ahead of the language law reading as the Kremlin is both objecting to the language law and promoting the passport law on the basis of “humanitarian grounds.” Russia claims that it protecting the human rights of its ethnic countrymen in Ukraine.
16 UKRAINE Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com