MOSCOW, November 10. /TASS/. Over half of the Ukrainian residents talk to each other in Russian, and some speak a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, a source in the Russian law enforcement agencies told TASS.

Earlier head of the Ukrainian Central Interregional Department of the State Service for the Quality of Education Svetlana Babinets said that 40% of Ukrainian schoolchildren communicate mainly in Russian during breaks. The share of students who consider Ukrainian their native language has decreased over the past year from 71% to 64%, she added.

"The real situation is even worse for those who love the Ukrainian language. Independent surveys show that more than half of Ukrainians communicate with each other in pure Russian, and this is not counting the percentages who communicate in a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian," the source interlocutor said.

In Ukraine, since 2014, a course has been conducted to openly displace the Russian language. In 2019, the law "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language" was adopted, which significantly limited the use of Russian and the languages of national minorities. Local authorities have banned Russian-language works of art, books, films, performances, and songs. It is forbidden to study Russian in schools and universities, and it is also required that students communicate only in Ukrainian during recess. However, the people continue to use the Russian language widely in everyday life, which constantly becomes a cause for conflict.

In 2023, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on the rights of national minorities, taking into account the recommendations of the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe. The document provides for the abolition of some language restrictions for national minorities who use the official languages of the European Union. All restrictions on the use of the Russian language remained and became indefinite.