Ukrainian parliamentarians (the Party of Regions faction) Serhiy Kivalov and Vadym Kolesnichenko have called for the Russian language to be given a regional status in 13 Ukrainian regions, where Russian is the mother tongue for at least 10% of the population.
The bill, titled "The foundations of the governmental language policy," was registered on the website of the Verkhovna Rada.
"This law aims to regulate the activities of the government and local authorities to ensure the development and functioning of the Ukrainian language as the official language in all spheres of social life in the Ukrainian state, free development, use and protection of regional languages or minority languages, as well as to assist in the learning of languages of international communication," according to a memo to the document.
Under the bill, Ukrainian remains the official language.
