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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Ukraine’s ex-president supports more widespread use of Russian language in Donbass

Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk Ivan Nikolayev/TASS

Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk

© Ivan Nikolayev/TASS

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KIEV, August 13. /TASS/. Ukraine’s envoy to the Contact Group and former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk considers a more widespread use of the Russian language in Donbass possible, as he said in an interview with Ukrainian Radio.

"I don’t think that the language will bring Donbass back. Citing the common European laws, we may raise not the issue of making Russian a state language but the issue of the use of this language because the Constitution guarantees the development and use of the languages of national minorities. And in this region it is possible to implement steps on the wider use of the Russian language, which won’t be a violation of the Ukrainian law," he noted.

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