Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has approved two new laws intended to erase Ukraine’s Russian culture. The statutes will rename places in Ukraine which stem from the country’s Russian influence.
Additionally, local authorities will be mandated to "free public space from the symbols of the Russian world."
The laws will prohibit names that "perpetuate, promote or symbolize the occupying state or its notable, memorable, historical and cultural places, cities, dates, events," and "its figures who carried out military aggression against Ukraine."
The new statute was signed on Friday and will take effect in 30 days. Local officials will then have six months to completely scrub public places of Russian culture. A board will be established to determine what names must be purged.
Since 2014, Kiev has waged a culture war against Russian influence in Ukraine. After a coup overthrew Viktor Yanukovych that year, new language laws were imposed that sought to marginalize the Russian language.
Zelensky, who at the time was a comedian, had one of his movies – Love in the Big City 2 – censored because it was in Russian. Roughly a fifth of Ukrainians identify as ethnic Russians.
In April 2019, Ukraine's parliament approved a new law restricting the use of the Russian language despite Russian being the most commonly used language in southern and eastern Ukraine.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 10, 2023
Human Rights Watch warned that the law failed to protect the linguistic rights of Russian… pic.twitter.com/vJoL736PuD
After Moscow ordered its troops to invade Ukraine last year, Zelensky has furthered the process called "de-Russification." Kiev has nationalized the media, outlawed Zelensky’s political opposition, targeted branches of the Orthodox church it claims has ties to Moscow, and torn down monuments that represent the historical Russian influence in Ukraine.
Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has approved two new laws intended to erase Ukraine’s Russian culture. The statutes will rename places in Ukraine which stem from the country’s Russian influence.
Additionally, local authorities will be mandated to “free public space from the symbols of the Russian world.”
The laws will prohibit names that “perpetuate, promote or symbolize the occupying state or its notable, memorable, historical and cultural places, cities, dates, events,” and “its figures who carried out military aggression against Ukraine.”
The new statute was signed on Friday and will take effect in 30 days. Local officials will then have six months to completely scrub public places of Russian culture. A board will be established to determine what names must be purged.
Since 2014, Kiev has waged a culture war against Russian influence in Ukraine. After a coup overthrew Viktor Yanukovych that year, new language laws were imposed that sought to marginalize the Russian language.
Zelensky, who at the time was a comedian, had one of his movies – Love in the Big City 2 – censored because it was in Russian. Roughly a fifth of Ukrainians identify as ethnic Russians.
In April 2019, Ukraine’s parliament approved a new law restricting the use of the Russian language despite Russian being the most commonly used language in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch warned that the law failed to protect the linguistic rights of Russian… pic.twitter.com/vJoL736PuD
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 10, 2023
After Moscow ordered its troops to invade Ukraine last year, Zelensky has furthered the process called “de-Russification.” Kiev has nationalized the media, outlawed Zelensky’s political opposition, targeted branches of the Orthodox church it claims has ties to Moscow, and torn down monuments that represent the historical Russian influence in Ukraine.
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