Financial Times: Ukraine's parliament gives boost to Russian language - Jul. 03, 2012

Financial Times: Ukraine’s parliament gives boost to Russian language

Published July 3, 2012 at 9:22 pm

The Financial Times report points out that Ukraine's opposition received a boost on July 3 \u201cfrom the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that the 2010 pre-trial arrest of Yuriy Lutsenko, former interior minister, was \u201carbitrary and unlawful.\u201d\u201cApart from ordering Ukraine to pay Mr Lutsenko \u20ac15,000 in damages, the ruling raises opposition hopes that lengthy prison sentences currently being served by their leaders \u2013 former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her ally Mr Lutsenko \u2013 could be overturned through appeals to the Strasbourg court,\u201d the report reads.

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President Viktor Yanukovych's ruling majority in Ukraine's parliament on July 3 “adopted controversial legislation that opponents fear will raise the status of Russian while undermining Ukrainian, the official state language,” Roman Olearchyk writes in a Financial Times report.

According to the report, “opposition politicians rushed to question the legality of the unexpected vote on a day that demonstrated how swiftly the nation has swung back towards political confrontation after a month of relative calm during the co-hosting of the Euro 2012 European football championship.”