MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax) - The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the official language law enacted in Ukraine seeks forcible Ukrainization of that country and urges the West to protect the rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine.
"We hope that Western partners and international human rights organizations will give a clear and principled evaluation to Kyiv's actions and use their influence to protect the rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department said in a commentary released on Tuesday evening in connection with the Monday's UN Security Council debate on the issue of enacting the Ukrainian official language law.
The Foreign Ministry regrets Western members of the UN Security Council have blocked the holding of its meeting "for political reasons," "declining to give an appropriate evaluation to the actions of authorities in Kyiv and once again demonstrating double standards while considering the situation in that country."
The law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the official language has earlier been signed by the then Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, before he left his office.
In accordance with the new law the Ukrainian language should become mandatory for all Ukrainian regions without any exception in the daily activity of the state: in the system of the bodies of power (from central to local ones), healthcare, culture, education, media, utilities and housing sector, utility services and so on. The use of the ethnic minorities' languages is limited by human-to-human communication and administering religious rituals.
Moscow believes that this document "is discriminatory with respect to Russian-language speakers and Ukrainian ethnic minorities and rudely violates the Package of Measures for implementing the Minsk Agreements approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2202 (2014), and is at odds with Kyiv's human rights commitments and encroaches on a number of international legal and constitutional norms." "Taking effect of the law will make the prospects of a peaceful settlement in Donbas more distant and is fraught with the further deterioration of the situation in eastern Ukraine," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"Forcible Ukrainization of the country in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution and international commitments in the area of human rights and protection of ethnic minorities in the multiethnic Ukrainian society is obvious," the Foreign Ministry said.
"We take note that the law was signed by Petro Poroshenko amid new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's statements on the need to thoroughly analyze the document for its compliance with the norms of the Constitution and the interests of all citizens of that country," the Russian Foreign Ministry added.
The ministry said that it keeps on "closely following the situation unfolding around the law."