The United Security Council discussed Ukraine’s language law

On the Russian initiative, the UN Security Council held a meeting on the Ukrainian language law.

The UN session had been called to discuss a law put into force by Kyiv on July 16 to declare Ukrainian «the only official state language in Ukraine,» a move that expands quotas for Ukrainian-language content on broadcast media and in print.

«The biased Ukrainian authorities have undertaken to eradicate Russians», — complained Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia. He argued that the language rule undermines Security-Council-endorsed initiatives to end the conflict in Ukraine.

«The struggle for the conservation of national and cultural identity should not devolve into an encroachment upon the Russian-language-speaking people of the country,» — he said.

Ukraine’s envoy Volodymyr Yelchenko countered that the language law was an internal matter that didn’t warrant the council’s scrutiny, and that Russia particularly should stay out of it.

«A country that for centuries suppressed the Ukrainian language, and forcefully replaced it with the Russian in all spheres of public life, is not in a position to tell us now what language we should speak and write,»  — Yelchenko said in English.

Permanent Representative of the Republic of France to the United Nations Nicolas de Rivière said that Ukraine’s law on the state language in no way poses a threat to international peace and security. On the contrary, continued violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty remains a serious concern and a threat to international peace and security. His delegation rejects illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Granting Russian Federation citizenship to those living in Luhansk and Donetsk undermines the Minsk agreements, he said.

Deputy Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations Jonathan Guy Allen expressed surprise that the representative of the Russian Federation did not talk about its arming of separatists in eastern Ukraine and non-implementation of the Minsk agreements, among other issues that warrant ongoing Council discussion. Rejecting the tenuous link between the language law and the Minsk agreements, he said Ukrainians continue to suffer from a Russian-fueled conflict that has claimed 13,000 lives. Emphasizing the responsibilities of all parties under the Minsk agreements, he called on the Russian Federation to withdraw its troops and military equipment from eastern Ukraine and to release political prisoners in Crimea where the situation is desperate.

Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen stating that language laws should unite people, not divide them, welcomed signals put out by the new President of Ukraine. He said that the law on the functioning of the Ukrainian language is not a matter to be considered at a UNSC meeting.

The United Security Council meeting has turned into a war of words between Moscow and the West.

«Russia must end its occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula,» — U.S. diplomat Rodney Hunter said.

«Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine and our sanctions against Russia for its aggression in eastern Ukraine will remain in place until Russia fully implements the Minsk agreements,» — he added, citing agreements signed in 2015 in the Belarusian capital designed to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

In addition, the United States and its allies demanded the release of 24 Ukrainian sailors and their vessel detained in December 2018 by Russian forces during a naval incident off the coast of Crimea.

The UN Security Council meeting ended without any resolutions or decisions according to Ukraine’s language law.

Recall that on April 25, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved the law On ensuring the functioning of Ukrainian as the state language by 278 votes. Several weeks before that, the deputies considered more

than two thousand amendments to the law. On May 15, the President of Ukraine signed the law on the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a state language. The next day the law was published in the official press.

On July 16, the law on Ukrainian language No. 2704-VIII came into force. Not all of it though, the most high-profile ones will take effect later. Earlier, on April 25, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the draft law #5670-d on the provision of the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state one in the second reading and in general.