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The situation with Russian is difficult in Ukraine, Russian officials say. Moscow, November 19 (Interfax) - The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed concerns about the situation with the Russian language in the former Soviet republics.

"Unfortunately, the situation with the Russian language is difficult in most former Soviet republics," Alexander Chepurin, director of the Foreign Ministry's department for liaisons with Russians abroad, told Interfax on Thursday.

Chepurin recalled that Russian is currently a state language in Belarus and a language of official communication in Kyrgyzstan.

The situation with Russian is difficult in Ukraine, Chepurin said.

"In Ukraine, where Russians are a state-forming nation and where the majority of the population speaks Russian in their families and daily life, the Russian language has no official status. There is a policy going on to reduce the sphere of its use and to dismantle the system of instruction in Russian," the diplomat said.

Speaking about the Baltic states, primarily Latvia and Estonia, where a lot of residents speak Russian, the diplomat said people there are still unable to exercise their right to officially use their language in places where they live in compact communities.

"The pressure on the Russian language and Russian-language education indicates attempts to make Russians assimilate. Those countries are members of the EU, which preaches respect for human rights and ethnic minorities," Chepurin said.