“One language should be the state language - Russian” - Pushilin
The DPR has 99 percent of the Russian-speaking population, so the initiative to make Russian the only state language is absolutely logical.
The head of the republic, Denis Pushilin, stated this during the Direct Line, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
During the conversation, the question was raised about the timeliness of giving the Russian language the status of a state language. Also, another resident of the DPR doubted whether the rights of the Ukrainian-speaking population were being infringed in this way.
“Let's start with the fact that about 99 percent of residents of the DPR consider Russian their native language, and accordingly, they speak, think, and communicate in it. But as for any infringement of languages or minorities, we have never had this.
Let me remind you that more than 130 nationalities live in the DPR. There were no interethnic contradictions, and I don’t even see the prerequisites for them.
Accordingly, as far as the Russian language is concerned, this is absolutely logical. In 2014, we came to the conclusion that we need two state languages, which was an element of our peace initiatives and the desire to negotiate. We still want to negotiate, and we do this in Minsk, but at the same time we believe that the Russian language is closer and more understandable for us,” Pushilin said.
“We do not infringe on other languages, we bring them to the level of electives. The class can choose any language - Ukrainian, Greek, Armenian. I believe that children should learn as many languages as possible, but why should it only be Ukrainian? Chinese is promising, why not? French is beautiful. Russian is our native language, he is the most beautiful,” added the head of the DPR.
“One language should be the state language. It is closer and clearer for us that the official language be Russian. I hope that parliament will support me. I don’t consider this a mistake,” Denis Pushilin emphasized.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.