ST. PETERSBURG, October 17. /TASS/. Russia will do its utmost to make Ukraine clear its education law of all discriminatory clauses, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said at a meeting with Hungarian National Assembly Speaker Laszlo Kover on the sidelines of the 137th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union on Tuesday.
"We will be acting in a way that will make Ukraine be in conformity with the European values, amend that law and clear it of all discriminatory measures," Matviyenko said.
Russia cannot afford to let this law take effect in Ukraine, she remarked.
"It is a gross violation of all international documents and conventions that guarantee and require all countries should strictly observe the rights of ethnic minorities," she said.
Matviyenko recalled that Ukraine was home to millions of compatriots and that Russia today was a witness to a crackdown on the Russian language, school closures and curtailment of instruction in Russian.
Ukraine at the end of September adopted a law on education, which restricts instruction in the languages of ethnic minorities. Over years, as the law takes effect step by step, teaching in the languages of minorities will become possible only in primary school. All further education will be allowed only in the Ukrainian language. Russia is strongly critical of the Ukrainian law on education, which violates international human rights agreements to which Kiev is a signatory.