Russia Foreign Ministry officials hope that the Russian language will obtain the status of the regional language not only in Kharkiv region, but in other Ukraine’s regions.
“We’d like to believe this decision of Kharkiv city council to tell on the situation with recognition of the Russian language not only in Kharkiv region, but in other Ukraine’s regions also,” says the commentary of Russia information and press department, published on the Ministry’s web-site.
According to Russian diplomats, due to this decision the Russian language could be used as a language of official relations. “Equally with the Ukrainian language Russian will be used in paper work, correspondence between local authorities; streets’ signs will also be bilingual,” as noted in the commentary.
Russian MFA officials consider that not only Kharkiv citizens wait for this, 65-70% of whom are Russian speaking, but also millions of other Russian speakers, local authorities and Ukrainian intelligentsia.
March 6, 2006 Kharkiv city council decided to recognize the Russian language as regional in Kharkiv region and established the use of Russian as a working language in official work and official papers.
