Reading time: revealing 48 minutes (or 49 with footnotes)
Welcome to the peace initiative for Ukraine in which you can contibute by raising your awareness as well as your consciousness[+] and spirit to the modes[+] of neutrality[*], decency, respectfulness, wisdom[*], objectivity, mastery of the intellect, surrender (ego and mind to God’s will), and finally peace (inner then outer). To properly grasp everything, we recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative in the order that we[*] designed it, which is listed in the CONTENTS. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we urge you to do it, please. With this article we continue the “Meeting the Demands for Ending the War” segment with a focus on Why Should Ukraine Denazify.
When Putin outlined the main reasons for pre-emptively conducting a military intervention in Ukraine, he named the genocide of millions of ethnic Russians by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists as a principal reason for conducting a special military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine.
“The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.” – Vladimir Putin, on 24 February 2022[+][+]
“on the morning of February 24, I publicly announced the reasons for and the main goal of Russia’s actions. It is to help our people in Donbass, who have been subjected to real genocide for nearly eight years in the most barbarous ways, that is, through blockade, large-scale punitive operations, terrorist attacks and constant artillery raids. Their only guilt was that they demanded basic human rights: to live according to their forefathers’ laws and traditions, to speak their native language, and to bring up their children as they want.” – Putin on 16 March 2022[+][+][+]
Putin has repeatedly referred to Ukraine’s policies in Donbass as “genocide.” In June 2022, several months into the conflict with Ukraine, he said “there can be no other definition for the Kiev regime’s actions than ‘a crime against humanity’.”
“Kiev’s actions in Donbass between 2014 and 2022 were nothing short of genocide,” Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged[+] again in January 2024. “The post-Maidan coup authorities in Ukraine were determined to “physically” get rid of anyone who still supported the development of good relations with Moscow”, he added.
No, there are no neo-Nazis in Ukraine
The denazification demand refers also to Ukraine supposedly committing genocide in the Donbas. As expected, Ukraine and its allies deny the genocide allegations. They classify Bucha's killings of a few hundred people as genocide but not the killing of thousands of Russian ethnic groups. In March 2023, regarding specific accusations of genocide committed by Russia, UN investigators found no genocide[+].
Some renowned international organizations controlled by the West, which have monitored the state of human rights in the Donbas region since 2014, have dismissed Russian allegations of genocide committed upon Russian ethnic minorities in the Donbas by Ukrainian military between 2014-2022. However, it must be noted that all those “international” organizations belong to the NATO states and their allies, which are Russian adversaries – as such their assessment is one-sided and biased, and serves the interests of NATO, which is why they lose validity and could rightfully be discredited. To be fair, if the assessments of Russian authorities are supposed to be disregarded, then it is only fair to also disregard the assessments of Ukrainian and NATO authorities. Fair is fair.
If anyone wants to apply double standards, it is their right but if we are to be equally fair to both sides in proposing a truce, we turn to the legal definition of genocide.
The legal definition of genocide is the "five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts are:
killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.
Article II of the UN Convention “On the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, adopted by resolution 260 (III) of the UN General Assembly of 09.12.1948, states that “Under genocide are understood the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such
The killing of members of such group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of such a group;
Deliberately inflicting on group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
All of these five acts have been conducted by the Kyiv regime since 2014 with plenty of evidence which we provided throughout this peace initiative and some here below. Therefore the genocide allegations are valid.
To qualify an event as genocide, there must be evidence that a government or a group which are blamed for the genocide has committed at least one of the above-mentioned acts. Not all five acts need to be committed for it to be classified as genocide but Ukraine did in fact commit all those five acts.
1. Undoubtedly, as even all encyclopedias verify[+], more than 13.000[+][+]ethnic Russians were continuously being killed by the Ukrainian military from 2014-2021 based on their ethnicity – this fact alone attests to genocide. One of many gruesome horrors that also Ukrainian civilians were deliberately killing Russians is the Odesa massacre[+][+][+][»] on 2 May 2014 – 116[+] (officially 48) peaceful protesters of Russian ethnicity were brutally murdered by being burned alive in the Trade Union House by hooligans and neo-Nazis, and no one was prosecuted for that although the felons are visible in many recordings. These unpunished killings would have continued if Russians hadn't intervened in 2022 to put a stop to that horror.
2. Furthermore, it is verified[+][+] also by the UN[+] that the Ukrainian military had caused serious bodily and mental harm to Russian ethnic minorities during the Donbas War (2014-2022) which Ukraine started (launching a military operation against anti-government protesters in Donbas) injuring 37-39.000 people
3. Kyiv regime has been deliberately imposing harmful living conditions intended to destroy the ethnic Russians, which is evident by statements from then-President of Ukraine Poroshenko who in his notoriously fascist political speech[»][»][»]on 23 October 2014, was viciously declaring fascist policies to inflict harsh conditions of life, designed to oppress and discriminate against children and civilians of Donbas: "We will have a job - they don't. We will have pensions - they don't. We will have the support of people - children and pensioners - but they don't. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, and they will sit in their basements. Because they don't know how to do anything!"
His anti-Russian policies and sending neo-Nazi battalions to Donbas to kill and tyrannize civilians who did not obey him had the boomerang of fate as karma has come around full circle for that genocider. In May 2023, he found himself, as well as the rest of Kyiv, sitting in one such basement (bomb shelter) he promised and implemented[»][»] for Donbas' children[ꚛ][»].
Former President of Ukraine Poroshenko sitting in a basement, falling into a pit he digged for ethnic Russians, so to speak
And it is not Donbas (Russian) but Ukrainian children who ended up sitting in their basements, while Donbas kids go to schools and kindergartens[»][ꚛ], as yet another proof that the verse from Bible Proverbs 26:27[+] is true: “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it; if someone rolls a stone, it will roll back on them.”
4. Those above-mentioned imposed governmental measures are just some of many intended to prevent births within the Russian ethnic minorities. People whom the government hinders from having jobs, pensions, schools, and kindergartens are surely prevented from procreating under such repressive conditions.
5. Many testimonies[+][+][»][»+][+] from Donbas residents provide evidence that Ukrainian special forces were forcibly kidnapping and transferring ethnic Russian children to Germany and other countries. We have already given a lot of evidence[*] about organ trafficking as well as child trafficking schemes in Ukraine.
Further evidence that the government officials had the intent of mass annihilation of the Russian ethnic minorities is their statements and actions. When the 2014 Odesa massacre[+][+][+][»] happened, then-MP Iryna Farion[+] posted on Facebook the next day[+]“Bravo Odesa...Let the devils burn in hell”1[+][ꚛ] and another then-MP Lesya Orobets celebrated the "liquidation" of the kolorady (a derogatory term for pro-Russians); while the leader of Right Sector members who participated in the massacre, Dimitro Yarosh became later an MP and Oleksiy Goncharenko2, who took part[+] in the Odesa massacre was later elected to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In 2014, the residents of southeastern Ukraine did not agree with the West-backed revolution and opposed the new undemocratically installed anti-Russian regime that elevated aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazism to the rank of national policy. They did not accept the new anti-Russian regime that recruited neo-Nazi Bandera followers into Ukrainian National Guard to tyrannize and kill the Russian ethnic minorities. They are fighting for their elementary right to live on their own land, to speak their own language, and to preserve their culture and traditions. They conducted mass protests and occupied government buildings just as those whom they protested against also did earlier that year. However, as it turns out, according to the new regime and their voters, the Russian ethnic minority didn't have the same rights to protest and occupy government buildings as the members of the new regime had when they were opposing the government. You can make of that what you will but in the end, double standards always come with consequences.
Pro-Western Ukrainians condemned the Yanukovych government for police brutality and killing 100 protesters (which was later debunked), but when they became part of the government, they did much worse – used tanks, artillery, and aviation against pro-Russian protesters and rebels, who under international norms exercised their right to rebellion, enshrined in the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by Resolution 217 A (III) of the UN General Assembly of December 10, 1948, which states: “It is essential that human rights should be protected by the rule of law to ensure that man will not be forced to resort, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression.”
The use of force against (Russian ethnic) protesters and rebels was violating the UN Declaration of Human Rights but nevertheless, under the US yoke, the UN has not condemned it or made efforts to stop it or protect the victims. Therefore, Russia had to intervene to protect its diaspora. Interesting how the West loves "rebels" when they're in Syria but hates rebels when they're from Donbas🤔.
former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, a quote from his Nobel Prize Speech
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) issued a statement[+] condemning Putin's misappropriation and misuse of the term genocide, citing no evidence of genocide by Ukraine. This is the same organization that also saw no evidence of genocide in Gaza[+] by Israel, which is a further evidence of them being nothing but a tool of NATO propaganda, a disgraceful, corrupt organization.
One such method often used by NATO propagandists is to collect signature of their puppets whom they call “experts” or “world's leading scholars” such as those of the history of World War II, the Holocaust, genocide, and Nazism who published a statement in The Jewish Journal pointing out the alleged incorrectness of the rhetoric about neo-Nazism, signed by almost 150 historians. They claimed that there is no Nazi government in Kyiv and that there has been no genocide of the Russian people in Ukraine. On the other hand, hundreds if not thousands of other independent historians and journalists claim the opposite, warning about neo-Nazis seizing power in Ukraine since 2014. Now, consider how is it possible that some historians claim one thing and other claim the opposite and whom one should believe and how politics and ruling classes influence their opinions.
What is more, Russian authorities and alleged victims of genocide in the Donbas region have presented plenty evidence to substantiate the claim that Ukraine committed a genocide (the above-mentioned five acts) of Russian-speaking people or ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Therefore, to claim that there is no evidence is outrageous and a deliberate act to disregard the victims and to support the neo-Nazis.
As part of the usual NATO method of “offense is the best defense”, Kyiv regime and their backers at NATO started to counter Russian allegations of genocide by condemning[+]the Russians of being the ones committing the genocide. Despite countless efforts to do so and having the backers among the so-called “experts” and “world's leading scholars”, these counter-allegations never worked out as beyond Ukraine and NATO, no one else bought this narrative as actions speak louder than words. As for Russian allegations of genocide, most of the world and even independent scholars in the West have taken them seriously, which is why Russia has much more backers in the world than Ukraine and NATO.
Right, Donbas is full of ethnic Russians and Russia is supposedly killing own people, according to Ukrainian clown-turned-president
Russia claimed victory so far in Ukraine's complaint to UN court under the Genocide Convention[+] submitted in February 2022. For time being, the decision is confined to the procedural question of the court's jurisdiction. However, at this preliminary stage, the case has fallen apart. The United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague completely rejected[+] all Ukrainian claims to the effect that Russia had allegedly violated the Convention and abused it to justify the beginning of the special military operation. As a result, there remains only one question for the court to consider – whether Ukraine committed genocide in Donbass. In other words, Kyiv has put itself in the dock within the framework of its own claims – they’ve ‘shot themselves in the foot’. The court ruled[+][+] that Russia was right that the Court has no jurisdiction to judge Ukraine's allegations of genocide by Russia. By 12 votes to 4, the Court upheld Russia’s preliminary objection that false allegations of genocide, and uses of force based on them, fall outside the scope of the Genocide Convention. Instead, the case will proceed to assess whether Ukraine committed genocide in the eastern parts of the country, whether this was a valid pretext for Russia's SMO. A final, legally binding decision is likely still years away. Ukraine will NOT be able to rely on this case in order to, for example, obtain from third states the confiscation and transfer of Russian state assets that they had frozen, because no reparation of that kind will be due. Together with the previous ruling, Ukraine suffered from a major disappointment in its ‘lawfare’ efforts against Russia.
Russian officials have been warning about the genocide in Donbas at the UN but just like Palestinian officials who alleged a genocide in Gaza, they could not achieve anything so far as the UN has proven to be under the US yoke and totally useless, which is why Russia took the matters in its own hands under the moral support of over 80% of the world who refused to sanction Russia and provide support for Ukraine despite enormous pressures from NATO.
For instance, on 23 February 2022, the day before Russia launched its SMO in Ukraine, at the United Nations General Assembly, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said[+]: "In view of the blatant genocide and the most important the human rights of the people of the world - the right to life are violated, and our country cannot remain indifferent to the fate of the 4 million people of the Donbass."
UN Genocide Prevention Office has a horrible track record as it never ever prevented any genocide and ethnic cleansing, which only proves that it serves the interests of NATO. Any country that is not a member of ally of NATO has no protection from genocide and ethnic cleansing. Only the nations that serve the interests of NATO and whose regimes bow down to NATO leaders may allege genocide while anyone else is ridiculed in the mainstream media that uses NATO propagandists among both journalists and scholars.
Donbas authorities never referred the alleged genocide to any Western Court of Justice, never filed a complaint or a lawsuit with the UN's International Court of Justice because the West has been arming Ukraine to kill them. There was no point to seek justice from their oppressors’ backers, thus, naturally, they sought protection and justice from Russia. This point is further evident with the similar events that took place in Gaza when ICJ and any other UN institutions did nothing to stop the genocide there.
Russia took legal action against Ukraine in July 2021 at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) but did not press genocide and ethnic cleansing charges against Ukraine in that application to avoid getting caught in phrasing the crimes. Russia’s application includes multiple alleged violations and blames Kyiv for murdering innocent civilians during the 2014 Euromaidan protests as well as for killings, abductions, and detentions in the following period, a restriction on the use of the Russian language, and attacks against Russian embassies and consulates, but no genocide. Legal experts understand very well why it is better not to press certain charges so as to have better chances to get a favorable verdict on other charges but the ignorant public and their representatives took it to mean something else, which serves NATO propaganda. Therefore, Moscow’s decision to speak about genocide and ethnic served narrative is used by Kyiv regime and its backers at NATO as a proof of “Russian propaganda” that only aims to mobilize Russian soldiers to fight.
A presumption for the alleged genocide is Russian president Putin’s view[+]that Russophobia is the first step towards genocide. Russophobia is not genocide but it may cause a genocide, as it did since 2014 when ethnic Russians started being killed based on their ethnicity as they protested against the new Russophobic Kyiv regime that started implementing new laws and policies discriminating against them, such as banning the use of Russian language in many spheres of life, Russian books, music, news, etc.
Linguistic Genocide
Russian authorities also alleged cultural or "linguistic genocide" (the term they used on occasion), which is ethnocide and quite different from genocide but still relevant.
In legal terms, there is no such thing as "linguistic genocide" but there are “violations of linguistic rights”. Russian lawmakers criticized a Ukrainian parliamentarians’ bill as "the massacre of the Russian language by Ukrainian nationalists" because the Ukrainian language was made mandatory for public sector workers, as well as requiring 90 percent of content in Ukrainian for TV and film distribution firms, and especially because illegal use of the Russian language would be fined. Although Ukraine has every right to enforce the Ukrainian language as the official state language in its own country, just as Russia did in its own country, however, like every other country, it has no right to violate the linguistic rights of any ethnic group, including Ukraine and Russia.
Baltic states such as Latvia conduct a crackdown on its Russian-speaking residents, with authorities pushing to expel thousands of ethnic Russians who fail to complete a mandatory language test
It is one thing to “support the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language” and quite another to prohibit or restrict the free use of other languages of ethnic minorities violating their linguistic rights!
Just the fact that Kyiv regime3 must go to such lengths to prohibit or restrict the free use of other languages, such as the most popular language, the Russian language, it just shows how unpopular Ukrainian language was or still is among the Ukrainians. If Ukrainian language were a preferred language, there would be no need for such aggressive measures as it would occur naturally.
Ukraine is a bilingual country so it made no sense to ban or restrict it since February 2014 other than for purely ideological reasons to antagonize half of the country and Russia. Like in all other bilingual countries, it would have made perfect sense to have two state languages, allowing people to stick with the language they are most comfortable with.
Irish citizens who are only fluent in English do not lose their Irish identity. Gaelic Venezuelans or Mexicans don’t care about Spain or confuse themselves with Spaniards despite speaking the same language. If many or most Ukrainians do not want to speak Ukrainian and prefer to speak Russian or any other language, why not let them?! Why force people to use the language they do not want to use?!
Ukrainian nationalists are forcing their vision of Ukrainization on the population but such politicized movements of forcing people to switch to Ukrainian and forcing language behavior on people does not usually work and often backfires. Besides, multilingualism is a great thing. There are civil or decent measures that government could have taken to promote or strengthen Ukrainian language, to make it more attractive, instead of coercion, such as a rewarding system for those who use it. This radical enforcement of the extremist law that initiated on 23 February 2014 (with Ukrainian parliamentarians proposing to repeal the language law[+][+] that was granting regional status to the Russian language – the use of Russian language in courts, schools, and other government institutions) was so divisive and repressive that it led to Crimea people seeking secession and the whole war that is still ongoing a whole decade later.
Those who protested the new unelected revolutionary anti-Russian government (that pushed for anti-Russian policies) were declared “terrorists” and the new regime sent its military including neo-Nazi battalions to kill and terrorize them. How anyone in their right mind could think that Russia would just sit onthe sidelines and allow thousands of their folk being slaughtered is beyond comprehension but it seems that Ukraine has been ruled by heedless fools who think they could poke a bear and not get hurt.
Only an unwise, irresponsible government could have made such a fatal mistake, which has costed them lives, territories, and fortune! They lost territorial integrity, sovereignty (the West rules them), and independence (totally dependent on the West). Was strengthening the Ukrainian language worth losing all that? Language restrictions and anti-Russian policies were interpreted as an attack on the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and became yet another trigger for pro-Russian separatism in the south-east of the country. In times when they had to find a common language, so to speak, to calm the unrest that was paralyzing the country, the thoughtless Kyiv regime kept adding fuel to the fire. In a country with around 8 million ethnic Russians and many more millions of people whose native language is Russian (14,3 million[+] altogether), anyone remotely intelligent could have anticipated dire consequences of that language law but the ruling classes of Ukraine seem not to use their brain cells properly.
They were warned by EU institutions such as the following day, on 24 February 2014, by OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Astrid Tours who expressed[+] concern that repeal of the language law could lead to further unrest but they ignored the voices of reason.
In the last census, in 2001, nearly a third of Ukraine’s over 40 million population registered Russian as their first language – 67.5% of Ukraine’s population declared Ukrainian as their native language and 29.6% declared it was Russian[+]. Even among ethnic Ukrainians, 14.8% declared Russian as their native language. In fact, Russian speakers constitute a majority in urban areas of industrialized eastern Ukraine and socio-culturally identify with Russia. Ukrainian speakers are mainly found in sparsely populated western Ukraine and in rural areas of east Ukraine. High percentages of persons belonging to several other national minorities declared their native language to be Russian – for example, 88.5% of the Greeks, 83% of the Jews, and 64.7% of the Germans. Also, it is one thing what one declares in theory of census and another what they do in practice. In private, most people preferred to speak Russian, even now. Speaking Ukrainian language only became a trend recently with state efforts to portray Russian as “the language of the aggressor” and with language bans and restrictions.
As part of Americanization of Europe, English language has been pushed into schools and even many companies in Ukraine and the whole of Europe use English as an official language, which makes no sense as the US is on another continent altogether and the UK broke away from the EU. In contrast, ethnic Russians had every right to demand that Russian remains the regional language and second official language of Ukraine and that any laws which prohibit its use are repealed because it was part of Ukraine's 1991 Declarations of Independence and Sovereignty[+][+][+] anyway as well as 1997 The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation[+][+].
This demand was made under the presumption that some regions with Russian ethnic minorities would remain part of Ukraine but if this is not the case any longer, this demand is likely redundant. Although, there are still a few regions in Ukraine with large communities of ethnic Russians, thus, unless Russia occupies them as well, it may remain the issue, especially in a larger context of protecting the linguistic rights of all ethnic minorities in Ukraine.
Be that as it may, we will dig into it here nonetheless for the sake of making a point how, besides NATO expansion, this issue sparked the whole conflict, which led regions with ethnic Russians (Crimea and Donbas) to seek secession from Ukraine. We will also explain why it was wrong and illegal to violate basic human language right affirming the right. First, let's see how the language issue escalated with time:
➡ On 23 February 2014, the new unelected US–puppet anti-Russian Kyiv regime (that forcefully overthrew the democratically elected government just two days earlier) made a proposal in the Ukrainian parliament to abolish the language law[+][+][+] (that granted regional status to the Russian language) so as to prohibit the use of Russian language in courts, schools, and other government institutions (that was criticized by EU institutions[+], which is why it took several years, until 2018, for this to be passed).
The very attempt to overturn that law just as they overturned the pro-Russian government by force two days earlier outraged ethnic Russians in Crimea and Donbas (mostly native Russian speakers) and served as a trigger event or incentive for Crimea people to seek independence and Russia’s protection against the illegitimacy of the new regime that was imposing the anti-Russian policies.
The newly elected president of Ukraine Poroshenko admitted[+] that the repeal of the language law was a mistake but in October 2014, the Constitutional Court started reviewing the language law and for some reason declared it unconstitutional and invalid on 28 February 2018[+], which further fueled the armed conflict in the country as ethnic Russians could never accept such a repressive ruling that infringed on their basic human rights. Unwise president Poroshenko went on to further add fuel to the fire by enacting new laws in 2017 and 2019, which added further restrictions on all languages of all ethnic minorities.
➡ In January 2017, the Parliament proposed to strengthen the role of the Ukrainian language and to oblige citizens to use it in almost all areas of life. Ukraine's 2017 education law[+] made Ukrainian the required language of study in state schools from the fifth grade on, i.e. at the basic secondary and upper secondary levels, although it allowed instruction in other languages as a separate subject,[+][+][+] to be phased in 2023.[+]
This outraged not just ethnic Russians and Russia but also Hungary. Furthermore, advisory body of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission joined the circle of voices critical of the laws affecting national minorities in Ukraine and it has appealed[+] to the Kyiv authorities to reconsider it and amend language policies of the new education law.
➡ In September 2018, Lviv Oblast Council introduced a ban on the public use of the Russian-language cultural products (movies, books, songs, etc.) throughout the Lviv Oblast[+].Human rights activists and lawyers called the law ill-defined, illegal, and unconstitutional.[+]The ban was, therefore, overturned in January 2019 by a court.
➡ In April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed the law "On supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language"[+][+] suppressing the use of Russian language, which is the native language and the only language they know for millions of Ukrainians, especially the ethnic Russians in south-eastern Ukraine, which is why they took it as an attempt at a cultural genocide[»]. This law made the use of Ukrainian language compulsory (totally or within quotas) in more than 30 spheres of public life, including public administration, electoral process, education, science, culture, media, economic and social life, health and care institutions, and activities of political parties.
Poroshenko showing the law signed. Chairman of the Ukrainian parliament Andriy Parubiy is on the left.
Just imagine if the Canadian or Swiss or Belgian government would ban the free use of French language in Quebec or Romandy or Wallonia and then killed thousands of French-speaking protesters and called them terrorists – how would the locals and the French people react?!
When it comes to the language of elections, referendums, media, science, and education - the focus should be on the human right to freely use any language. The new law obliges all citizens to know the Ukrainian language and makes it a mandatory (prerequisite) for civil servants, soldiers, doctors, and teachers. Moreover, the new law regulates the use of language in Ukraine’s culture industry. For instance, one is only allowed to use foreign languages in theatres in case of “artistic necessity”. The law does not explain who will define this “necessity” or how. The number of films shown in cinemas that aren’t dubbed into Ukrainian cannot exceed 10%. The number of times that foreign films are shown in their original dubbing cannot exceed more than 10% of the cinema’s entire repertoire. The citizen can no longer contact or send letters to the officials and authorities of higher levels in Russian language; identity documents can no longer be issued in Russian language. The law prohibits employees of restaurants, cafes, bars, shops, banks, hospitals and other similar institutions from talking to visitors in Russian language[+], which is especially inacceptable to people in the regions where majority of people are ethnic Russians.
In April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed the law[+][+] that prohibits or suppresses the use of Russian language as it makes the use of Ukrainian language compulsory (totally or within quotas) in more than 30 spheres of public life, including public administration, electoral process, education, science, culture, media, economic and social life, health and care institutions, and activities of political parties. When Zelensky came to power one month later, his voters expected him to revoke that law as during presidential campaign, he promised to revise it but he didn't. In fact, despite previously advocating[»] for the free use of Russian language, he made a U turn and made even stricter rules: by September 2020, there was not a single Russian-language school left in Ukraine; in March 2021, he signed decrees banning Russian language media outlets[+] shutting down three Russian language TV channels, radio, newspapers, and banning the import of books in Russian language – all before Russian SMO. Moreover, in June 2022, his ruling party passed two laws which placed restrictions on Russian books and music[+][+][+][+] and in July 2023, the Kyiv City Council prohibited[+] the usage of "Russian language cultural product" in the city of Kyiv such as public performances in Russian language, playing Russian music and films. Never mind the illegality of it but the question is, if a native Russian speaker could ban Russian language, why is it unthinkable for some that the same guy who is also a Jew could disregard his Jewishness and choose his fellow compatriot neo-Nazi Bandera followers over Jews?
The parliament (Verkhovna Rada), the bodies of state power, and local self-government should monitor the implementation of this law. In case of violation of the law, officials of the aforementioned institutions bear administrative or criminal liability.
The first version of that new law contained a point about the introduction of “language inspectors” - public officials who were to monitor the obligatory use of Ukrainian. But this norm has then been removed, while keeping the position of a public official with oversight over defence of Ukrainian language. These “inspectors” were removed following a negative reaction from society (for example, heated debates on social media[+]). The first version of the law stated that every media resource in a foreign language should have a Ukrainian version and bear the financial costs. A similar provision is applied to education, where one or more subjects can be taught in a European Union language, but not in Russian.
➡ Since 1 September 2020, there is not a single Russian-language school left in Ukraine, all education from the 5th grade is only in Ukrainian in a country where 14,3 million[+] people declared Russian as their native language – this is a violation of human linguistic rights. There are no textbooks in Russian language either.
However, there are English-language schools, even though there are no significant number of ethnic minorities living there who declared English as their native language, which is clear evidence how Ukraine doesn't mind being Americanized[»](thus Russification should have not been an issue either in a country with 8 million ethnic Russians but nearly 0 ethnic Americans). In June 2023, a bill for a new law (No. 9432) on the use of English as one of Ukraine’s languages for international communication was introduced[+] by president Zelensky.
➡ In March 2021, Ukraine's president Zelensky signed decrees banning Russian language media outlets[+] shutting down three Russian language TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, and banning the import of books from Russia, which violated UN Charter on Human Rights. The broadcasters had their licenses revoked and are set to stay off the air for the next five years.
➡ On 19 June 2022, the Ukrainian parliament passed two laws which placed restrictions on Russian books and music[+][+][+][+]. The new laws prohibit the import of books printed in Russia, Belarus and the occupied Ukrainian territories, and prohibit the reproduction in the media and public transport of music performed or created by post-1991 Russian citizens, unless the musicians are included in a "white list" of artists who have publicly condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine.
➡ On 13 July 2023, the Kyiv City Council prohibited[+] the usage of "Russian language cultural product" in the city of Kyiv. This includes public performances in Russian language, musical concerts, and films.
Never mind the human rights violations and illegality of it but the question is, why there was a need to officially prohibit all that in the first place? Wouldn't it be most natural for the local people to choose by themselves not to use any of it if they considered it inappropriate? There must be a gap between what the Kyiv authorities and Kyiv public believe for this ban to be enforced upon the people. They are forcing their vision of Ukrainization on the population rather than making people’s lives easier.
For comparison, there was none of that during the war between Croatia and Serbia in the 1990s, so this is not normal as the Kyiv regime want us to believe. All of this is part of a campaign to violate basic human rights. For some reason, even though Western authorities have condemned it, they keep on supporting such a fascist regime, only because it suits Western agenda to suppress and censor all things Russian. Major censorship and blockade of all things Russian has been going on in the West for over a decade; nothing to do with alleged “Russian invasion” in 2022.
⚠️ Can anyone imagine what would happen if opposition parties of Switzerland or Canada or Belgium would violently overthrow democratically elected government and ban French language in Romandy or Quebec or Wallonia and killed thousands of French-speaking protesters and called them terrorists?! Or if Finland's new revolutionary regime would ban the Swedish language and killed thousands of Swedish-speaking protesters and called them terrorists?! Or what would happen if Ireland's new repressive regime would ban English language and killed thousands of English-speaking protesters and called them terrorists?! Or, if the Brits would forbid the Scots to use their language and kill them if they protested? Would the world ignore and allow it like it was done in Ukraine when the Kyiv regime banned the free use of Russian language? In Finland, there are only 5,2% of Swedes but Swedish is the official language. In Ukraine, there were at least 20% of ethnic Russians and more than 50% of Ukrainians used Russian as their main language, which is why the ban was even more inappropriate. Russians had been knocking on all doors, OSCE, Council of Europe, etc., asking the international lawmakers to intervene but no one did anything about it. Therefore, Russia had no choice but to intervene by force.
Putin tried for 8 years to resolve the issue through diplomacy but found out that Kyiv and its backers never meant to implement the Minsk agreements[+][+] and were only trying to fool him[+][+][»][+] to buy time to militarize Ukraine to kill the resistance and the (ethnic) Russians. Would France, Sweden, the UK, or any other country wait 8 years to use force to stop their diaspora from being killed every day?
Can anyone in the southern United States, for instance, imagine being stopped by law enforcement on a street and a police officer beating you for speaking the Spanish language or listening to Spanish music? Well, that is what has been happening often to residents in eastern and southern Ukraine since 2014, as this video evidence[»] in Kharkiv shows. And no one in the US, the EU, or any other bilingual country ever objected to these human rights violations in Ukraine. No wonder, Russia intervened.
And to point out whom we are all dealing with as a president of Ukraine, let’s have a look what he did in January 2024. After all these laws and policies banning the Russian language in Ukraine, Zelensky had the nerve to issue a new decree[+] in which he demanded the very same rights for ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia that he denies to the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine:
“Russia must comply with its international obligations to ensure that Ukrainians living in its territories, including those historically inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians, have the right to education in the Ukrainian language and its free use, civil, social, cultural and religious rights, access to Ukrainian-language media, and the right of peaceful assembly.”
Ukraine’s constitution does not give Ukrainian citizens the right to dual citizenship, so 4 million ethnic Ukrainians who live in Russia are not allowed to hold Ukrainian passports and so preserve their identity. Ukraine denies them that right but demands[+] that Ukrainian national identity be preserved by Russia with the free use of Ukrainian language! Some twisted logic and double standards! He ordered the government in Kyiv to develop “an action plan” to “preserve” Ukrainian “national identity” in Russia. Does that mean Kremlin has the right to do the same – to develop an action plan to preserve Russian national identity in Ukraine? If not, Zelensky declared himself a hypocrite.
Beside showing himself as an outrageous hypocrite who doesn't scruple to employ double standards, as usual, Zelensky provided no evidence to prove that Russia is not complying with the stated international obligations in the first place. There have been no complaints or protests from ethnic Ukrainians in Russia regarding that matter, nor did he suggest that there were any. Moscow has never imposed any restrictions on the Ukrainian language. Russia’s education minister, Sergey Kravtsov, said in July 2022 that “no one was banning” it, and that it would be taught in schools where necessary.
With his decree, Zelensky brands[+][+] parts of Russia ‘historically’ Ukrainian whereby assuming territorial claims on six sovereign Russian regions, which is pretty laughable. The most ironic is the fact that this Zelensky’s decree came just weeks after Kyiv launched a major attack on the city of Belgorod[+], which Zelensky's decree claims to be “historically inhabited by Ukrainians”, killing 25 civilians, including five children, and left more than a hundred injured as well as damaging 37 apartment buildings, 453 apartments, three private households and seven social and government facilities. What kind of leader shells civilians of a region he claims to be inhabited by Ukrainians?! He and his predecessor Poroshenko did it already for years in Donbas, shelling Ukrainian citizens, so no surprise there but it only exposes his monstrosity. Zelensky has been conducting a genocide of Ukrainian citizens (of Russian ethnicity) not just in Donbas but also by forcing ethnic Ukrainians to “fight until the last Ukrainian”!
With decree phrases like “the peoples enslaved by Russia4” and “the more than thousand-year history of Ukrainian statehood5[+],” “Russia has systematically destroyed national identity6[+], oppressed Ukrainians, and violated their rights and freedoms7,” the whole decree reads like a drivel from a lunatic who is so desperate to verbally attack Russia by any means possible, regardless of how foolish he exposes himself to be. Just a couple days earlier he also made a fool of himself at the WEF circus in Davos by claiming he was actually the one who refused to meet the Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang there because they are not on the same level. With such stunts, he let us know that there is truth in the Turkish proverb “When a Clown moves into a Palace, he doesn't become a King. The Palace instead becomes a Circus.”
Ukrainian nationalists and uneducated people, who have no clue about law, disseminate all kinds of ignorant statements on the social media justifying this language law and boring us with their standard answer for covering their crimes against humanity – “it is Russian propaganda”, which is why it is important to make it clear how not just inappropriate this law is in a multi-ethnic state but it is against international laws.
First of all, as for the most frequent phrase for denial of own responsibility – blaming it on “Russian propaganda”, it is not just Russians but all ethnic minorities that objected to this law and some have taken major actions in that regard. Apart from Russia, most vocal about it are Hungary and Romania, whose diaspora lives in neighboring Ukraine.
One of the main reasons why Hungary is not supporting Ukraine is because of the Ukraine's violations of linguistic rights of Hungarian minority living in Transcarpathia. Hungary has been blocking high-level NATO-Ukraine meetings since autumn 2017, following the adoption of a new law on education by the parliament in Kyiv and has been making the same accusations against the language law adopted in April 2019. On 26 April 2019, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said[+][+] the law was "unacceptable" and "part of Poroshenko's anti-Hungarian policy". On 4 December 2019, Hungary announced that it would block Ukraine’s accession to NATO until Kyiv restored the rights that ethnic Hungarians had enjoyed before the changes in language law were adopted in September 2017.
The Romanian-speaking community in Ukraine comprising Romanians and Moldovans is the second largest ethnic minority in Ukraine (after Russians). In a speech to the Romanian Parliament in April 2022, Zelensky promised[+] to protect the Romanian minority in his country but he did not keep his word as Romanian President Klaus Iohannis complained[+] about it criticizing Ukraine's law on national minorities, although as an ethnic German[+] who speaks better German than Romanian language, he did not press the issue as much as Hungarians have been doing.
But, apart from foreign governments, there are all kinds of experts in law and human rights who objected to it, which we will make known here.
By banning and restricting Russian language, Ukraine violated Article 12 of The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation[+][+](signed in 1997 and Ukraine terminated it on 19 September 2018), which prescribed that Ukraine “shall protect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity of ethnic minorities in their territory and shall create conditions that encourage such diversity; andshall guarantee the right of persons belonging to ethnic minorities, individually or together with other persons belonging to ethnic minorities, freely to express, preserve and develop their ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious diversity and promote and develop their culture without being subjected to any attempts to assimilate them against their will.” Nevertheless, Kyiv regime has forced Ukrainization onto Russian ethnic minorities, who were subjected to constant attempts to assimilate them against their will ever since February 2014.
On 23 February 2014, the new unelected US–puppet anti-Russian neo-Nazi Kyiv regime (that forcefully overthrew the democratically elected government just two days earlier) made a proposal in the Ukrainian parliament to abolish the language law[+][+][+] (that granted regional status to the Russian language) so as to prohibit the use of Russian language in courts, schools, and other government institutions. The newly (May 2014) then-elected president of Ukraine Poroshenko admitted[+] that the repeal of the language law was a mistake but in October 2014, the Constitutional Court started reviewing the language law and for some reason declared it unconstitutional and invalid on 28 February 2018[+], despite the Article 12 of the Treaty that was terminated only later, on 19 September 2018.
In January 2017, the Parliament proposed to oblige all citizens to use the Ukrainian language in almost all areas of life, which violated that Treaty because it forced Ukrainization onto Russian ethnic minorities, who were forced to assimilate against their will. Ukraine's 2017 education law[+] made Ukrainian the required language of study in state schools from the fifth grade on.
As for Ukraine's violations of human rights and international law, here are some of the international legal instruments and declarations that mandate the rights of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, profess their own religion, and use their own language, all of which Ukraine violated and for which should be held accountable (which is what Russians are doing because international legal institutions failed to take any significant action on those matters):
➡ European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages[+][+], ratified by Ukraine in 2003
➡ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights[+] – Article 27
➡ Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities[+]
➡ Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights[+](1996) serves to promote international commitment to respecting the rights of linguistic groups as well as individuals who do not reside within their native communities.
➡ Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities[+]
➡ Universal Declaration of the Collective Rights of Peoples
Linguistic rights[+] include, among others, the right to one's own language in legal, administrative, and judicial acts, language education, and media in a language understood and freely chosen by those concerned. Ukraine violated those basic human rights by banning or restricting[+][+] Russian language in more than 30 spheres of public life, including public administration, electoral process, education, science, culture, media, economic and social life, health and care institutions, and activities of political parties.
Since 2019, Kyiv regime has violated those human rights by imposing bans on free usage of Russian language. People, including small children, have been prohibited to use their native language, which is against the international law. An example of ethnocide in action – children's playgrounds such as this one in Kyiv[ꚛ][+] featuring a board stating that it is forbidden to speak Russian. Do you know any other place on Earth that has ever done something like that at kids play area? Pure fascism, isn't it?
It is unacceptable to speak Russian in public places in Ukraine. A ruling by Ukraine's Constitutional Court on July 14, 2021, stated that there is 'no Russian-speaking population in Ukraine' legally. Russian speakers are considered marginal and defective people.
Former member of parliament from Svoboda Party, neo-Nazi linguist and professor Iryna Farion[+] declared in 2017[+][+] that according to the Constitution of Ukraine, the Russian-speaking Ukrainians have no right to exist and "Don't give them either education or work." She stated that her task is to "neutralize the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine as much as possible." This is the type of Ukrainian parliamentarians and academics like her, which are given power and who are not held accountable for their hate speech. In May 2023, she openly talked[»] about how her grandson should punch every kid that speaks Russian in kindergarten – even though it is unconstitutional and against law[»], unlike in other civil societies[+], where high officials get arrested and lose their jobs for hate speech, she was neither condemned nor fired as a professor at the Department of Ukrainian Language at the Lviv Polytechnic (Institute of Humanitarian and Social Sciences). If such academics, who openly and freely advice aggression, violations of human rights, and killing (“neutralizing”) of Russian-speaking citizens, are authorities at an Institute of Humanitarian and Social Sciences, then one can imagine how others less educated in Humanitarian and Social Sciences share her views and act on it. So, here are a couple pieces of evidence showing that her words were not dismissed but taken seriously: one[»] showing a complaint about a child getting sick after his teacher washed out his mouth with soap for speaking Russian at a daycare in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa, another one[»] showing a posted notice in a kindergarten saying that children are not allowed to speak Russian there, plus another one[ꚛ][+] we already mentioned showing a signpost at a children playground with a sign that speaking Russian is prohibited at that playground. No wonder she reaped what she sowed by being murdered[+][ꚛ] herself in July 2024 and surely burning in hell. She was inciting hatred based on linguistic preferences and became a fatal target of hatred herself. May God have mercy on her, but when will toxic people ever fathom how God's justice work and learn that we all reap what we sow eventually?!
Ukrainian political activist Irina Farion. She was a strong advocate against Russian language and called Ukranians speaking it “biological waste”
Furthermore, appointed expert opinions of international committees and other bodies like the Venice Commission, OHCHR, HRW, and OSCE, also condemn Ukraine for enacting the restrictive language and education laws. As a matter of fact, Ukraine could not find a single international authority in support of its 2019 language law. Everyone[+] objects it. So, all this “Russian propaganda” narrative is exposed as Ukrainian propaganda to blame Russia and deny Ukrainian human rights violations. Here are just a few of Western expert reports:
➡ on 24 February 2014, OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Astrid Tours opposed and expressed[+] concern that repeal of the language law could lead to further unrest but in the end, Kyiv ignored the voices of reason.
➡ Since 2018, European Parliament[+][+] raised concerns over Ukrainian violations of human rights after Council of Europe and the OSCE received complaints[+][+][+] from the foreign ministers of Hungary, Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria about the violation of the rights of the respective minorities in Ukraine.
➡ On 1 June 2019, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report[+] expressing concern about the absence of special legislation regulating the use of minority languages in Ukraine and criticized the distinction between minorities speaking an official EU language and other national minorities.
➡ In November 2019, the advisory body of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission has joined the circle of voices critical of the laws affecting national minorities in Ukraine, including the 2019 language law, and it has appealed[+] to the Kyiv authorities to reconsider it and amend some provisions of the language law. According to the advisory body, that law does not strike a balance between strengthening the Ukrainian language and preserving the linguistic rights of minorities. Commission calls for the deletion of the provisions related to the different treatment of national minority languages. In their 2017 and 2019 appeals titled “Opinion on the Provisions of the Law on Education of 5 September 2017 which concern the use of the State language and Minority and other languages in Education”[+] and “Opinion on the Law ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian language as State Language”[+] they make references to the disputed statutory citations.
➡ In January 2022, Human Rights Watch expressed[+] concerns about protection for minority languages and the 2019 law's failure to protect the language rights of Ukrainian minorities.
Russian ethnic minorities in Ukraine have every right to determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. The International Court of Justice, in a 2010 advisory opinion, declared that unilateral declarations of independence[+] are not illegal under international law. Yet, Ukrainian Constitution gives no right to any people to unilaterally secede from the state and form a separate state. In international law, however, this is allowed in certain cases such as in the case of humanitarian crisis, which has certainly been the case in Donbas since 2014.
In recognition of states’ right to preserve their territorial integrity, secession is allowed only in extreme cases of repeated oppression or subjugation of the minority, leaving it with no other option to exercise “internal self-determination” in a meaningful way. International lawyers call this “remedial secession.”
Even if linguistic rights were denied or curtailed, this would hardly justify secession and would certainly not amount to genocide. For Ukrainian Russophones was denial of their human linguistic right already extreme enough but when the military started to kill and terrorize them, then they had no other choice but to seek to separate from a regime that tyrannized them, especially when the UN did not protect them (like it did not protect Palestinians and many other oppressed folks).
The Russian Federation invited the UN Security Council to convene a meeting to condemn the law. But the UN Assembly and the Security Council have refused even to assess the law passed in Ukraine let alone to condemn it. Go figure. One can argue that it is the UN's fault that the conflict escalated into a war – had the UN protected ethnic Russians’ human rights, there would be no need for Russia to launch their SMO there.
The pro-West, anti-Russian government in Kyiv passed new language laws in 2019 which relegated Russian speakers to the status of second-class citizens. Indeed, the usually pro-Western Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed alarm about these laws. As the HRW explained in an early-2022 report[+], which received nearly no coverage in the Western media, the Kyiv government passed legislation that “requires print media outlets registered in Ukraine to publish in Ukrainian. Publications in other languages must also be accompanied by a Ukrainian version, equivalent in content, volume, and method of printing. Additionally, places of distribution such as newsstands must have at least half their content in Ukrainian.”
Further, according to the HRW[+], “Article 25, regarding print media outlets, makes exceptions for certain minority languages, English, and official EU languages, but not for Russian” (emphasis added), the justification for that being “the century of oppression of … Ukrainians in favor of Russia.” Can somebody explain to us why was (and still is) English and not Russian a second language in a country where 14,3 million[+] people declared Russian as their native language? And why do Ukrainian little children learn to sing Ukrainian anthem in English[»]? Are there many American, British, or Australian minorities living there? This is just one of many pieces of evidence that the US and the UK have colonized (neo-colonialism) Ukraine but this is beside the point. The point is that in a country where around half of the country were native Russian speakers (Russophones), the Kyiv regime banned using the Russian language. No wonder people Ukrainians raised in protest but Kyiv authorities labeled them as terrorists and launched an anti-terrorist military operation against them, killing thousands of innocent civilians and forcing millions to flee the country.
As the HRW explained[+], “[t]here are concerns about whether guarantees for minority languages are sufficient. The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s top advisory body on constitutional matters, said that several of the law’s articles, including article 25, ‘failed to strike a fair balance’ between promoting the Ukrainian language and safeguarding minorities’ linguistic rights.” Such legislation only underscored the Ukrainian government’s desire to destroy the culture, if not the very existence, of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine. There is a word for it – genocide.
In retrospect, even Zelensky’s former adviser and spokesperson Oleksiy Arestovych admitted[»] that the decision to attack the Russian language was wrong and that this caused the Donbass uprising.
If countering the violations of linguistic rights of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine is what is also meant by denazification, then as peacemakers, we advise both Ukrainians and Russians to fully respect the linguistic rights of all their ethnic minorities. In that sense, both countries should comply with international laws in that regard and if there is any violation of those human rights, the victims are invited to file a complaint or a lawsuit in a court of law, first national, then international, in order to fight for their rights and win.
Putin said that “the Russian world can and must unite all people who appreciate the Russian language and Russian culture wherever they may reside – in Russia or elsewhere.”
Russia has spent the last several years aggressively advocating for the rights of Russian minorities abroad, and in particular for the “protection” of the Russian language. Considering its grandstanding about the rights of ethnic Russians abroad, the violations of linguistic rights of its own ethnic minorities at home suggest hypocrisy or double standards as well as sowing-and-reaping effect.
To that matter, we are obliged to point out the numerous complaints of Russian ethnic minorities[+]and Human Rights Watch, who are accusing the Russian government of the same wrongdoing and human rights violation that Russia is accusing Ukraine of. Russian government’s measures to systematically eradicate languages of many ethnic minorities are seen by NATO propagandists as Russian linguistic genocide.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been urging the Russian government to address the deep-rooted problems facing ethnic and linguistic minorities in the country, pointing to worrying laws for gradually diminishing linguistic diversity in Russia.
According to NATO propaganda, in recent years, Russian legislators have been reasserting the importance of the Russian language in education and increased legislative attempts to marginalize the status of minority languages in ethnic republics. They allege that Kremlin is increasingly pursuing a programme of cultural homogenization[+], gradually removing support for education in minority languages, curriculums with ethno-regional components, and other cultural initiatives by Russian ethnic minorities, introducing new measures that hasten the demise of these languages and ensuring that the Russian language remains preeminent across the country.
To provide some proof, they point to the allegedly catastrophic situation of the Udmurt language[+] and the 2009 demonstrations in Bashkortostan[+], where more than 2.000 people came to protest Moscow’s policy of removing elements of ethnically specific education from schools after teachers teaching ethnic-minority languages were fired en masse. There were some other attempts in Tatarstan[+] and in several other ethnic republics to resist the state’s moves against minority languages. But all these attempts faced preemptive actions by security services or local officials appointed by Moscow.
In countries as vast and diverse as Ukraine and Russia, top-down assimilation is a poor way to shore up a spirit of national unity. Assimilation policies will always meet with resistance, even entrench it; in this case, the result is a war. It seems that both governments’ efforts to homogenize the nations are strengthening exactly the sort of identities they were supposed to marginalize.
All things considered, if Russia is making any demands on Ukraine regarding the linguistic rights of the Russian ethnic minority in Ukraine, then it should reciprocate by doing the same, as opposed to demanding something that they are not willing to do.
Just like in the case of proposing the equality of the separatists’ rights in the Donbas region and those in many Russian regions, as neutral and objective peace activists, in this context, too, we are only asking for everything being equal and for everyone to be fair and to oblige to the Golden Rule[+]– the principle of treating others as one wants to be treated: Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated. So, Russians should not treat their ethnic minorities in ways that they would not like Ukrainians to treat Russian ethnic minorities. If Russians don't want Ukrainians to suppress the use of the Russian language in their country, then Russians should not suppress the use of the languages of their ethnic minorities at home! This is the principle of fairness.
In that regard, as peacemakers, we propose as a solution for Russia to act or serve as a good example, to lead by example, to be an inspiration by respecting the linguistic rights of its ethnic minorities and when it implements the laws in that regard, the international community would be more than willing to support Russia in its efforts to protect Russian language in Ukraine and elsewhere, without the need to resort to violence.
Ukrainian legislators are urged to comply with international laws regarding human rights, in particular linguistic rights.
Thank you for reading this article and participating in this peace initiative by raising your awareness and, hopefully, your consciousness and spirit. To properly grasp everything, we[*]recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative for Ukraine in the proper order, which is listed in the Contents. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we recommend that you do.
No wonder Iryna Farion reaped what she sowed by being murdered herself in July 2024 and surely burning in hell. When will malevolent people ever learn that we all reap what we sow eventually?!
Oleksiy Goncharenko[+] is a Russophobic Ukrainian MP from an opposition party, also member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; former chairman of the Odesa region Council; a son of former mayor of Odesa and one of the fiercest Russophobes with neo-Nazi affiliations
we refer to Kyiv as a regime[+] due to its oppressive and repressive policies, corruption, and foul treatment of its ethnic minorities, such as the ethnic Russians, violating their human rights, tyrannizing, and killing them since 2014.
right, it is Russia, not Zelensky allies such as the US and other Western nations that has history of having slaves, very funny. Wonder why allegedly only Ukraine was enslaved by Russia and no other nation
Zelensky: “the more than thousand-year history of Ukrainian statehood”[+] — The first time ever Ukraine was recognized as a state was in 1918 by Germans and Austrians and only because they reckoned Kyiv council (Rada) would be a useful tool against their enemy Russians. Zelensky obviously needs lessons in history or mathematics
only the ignorant may fall for this victim narrative while most others know it was Stalin & Russians who gave Ukraine an identity by insisting in 1945 that it (rather than another republic) be taken into the UN as a separate nation despite being in the USSR
if so, why has Ukraine never filed a complaint to UNHCR about it? This became a narrative only since 2014 after neo-Nazis took power and Crimeans decided to rejoin Russia. Soviet leaders were from Georgia (Stalin) and Ukraine (Khrushchev and Brezhnev)
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