OREANDA-NEWS. According to the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from the Servant of the People faction Yevgeny Shevchenko, amendments to Ukrainian legislation that will affect the status of the Russian language and its exclusion from educational programs, television and radio, and in general from everyday communication will only have the opposite effect.

According to him, "the language issue in Ukraine really exists and, unfortunately, it divides the county into two parts." There is a predominantly Russian-speaking part of Ukrainian society, and then there is one firmly disposed towards complete linguistic Ukrainization.

Yevgeny Shevchenko noted that although the Constitution stipulates the status of the Russian language, there are some laws adopted by the previous compositions of the Verkhovna Rada and are clearly discriminatory, which contradict the basic law of the country. For this reason, he and the deputies of other factions sent a request to the Constitutional Court about the legality of these legal acts.

Shevchenko recalled that even during the times of the Ukrainian SSR, the Ukrainian language developed more than now. Therefore, when they try to impose the Ukrainian language without citizens’ wish, and not just impose, but prohibit Russian, there will always be the opposite effect. Anything that is prohibited will always receive opposition.

He also recalled that Russia is a neighboring country with Ukraine, and this in any case has to be reckoned with.