Ukraine adopts new laws requiring public places to be de-Russified" title="Ukraine adopts new laws requiring public places to be de-Russified" />

Written by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has approved two new laws aimed at erasing Russian culture from Ukraine. The statutes will change the names of places in Ukraine that derive from Russian influence in the country.

In addition, local authorities will have the mandate to do so “Freeing Public Space from Symbols of the Russian World.”

The laws will ban names that “perpetuate, promote or symbolize the occupying state or its notable, memorable places, cities, dates, historical and cultural 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. Then the local officials will have it six months to completely clean public places of Russian culture. A board will be established to determine which names should be purged.

Since 2014, Kiev has waged a culture war against Russian influence in Ukraine. After a coup toppled Viktor Yanukovych that year, new language laws were imposed that sought to marginalize the Russian language.

Zelensky, then a comedian, censored one of his films, Love in the Big City 2, because it was in Russian. About a fifth of Ukrainians identify as ethnic Russians.

In April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed a new law limiting the use of the Russian language even though Russian was the most widely spoken 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 pushed the so-called “de-Russification” process. Kiev has nationalized the media, banned Zelensky’s political opposition, targeted branches of the Orthodox church it says has ties to Moscow, and demolished monuments depicting historic Russian influence in Ukraine.

Source link