MOSCOW, June 15. /TASS/. Moldova's authorities will not be able to ban the Russian language, as it is actively used by up to a quarter of the country's population, former Moldovan President and leader of the opposition Party of Socialists Igor Dodon said in an interview with TASS.

"About 25% of Moldova’s population is Russian-speaking. I mean Russian-speaking, not ethnically Russian. Moldova’s largest ethnic group is Moldovans, followed by Ukrainians, then Russians, Gagauz, and others. Moldova is a multinational country. Roughly a quarter of the population has always been Russian-speaking. Why do I mention this? Because virtually everyone in Moldova speaks Russian. What has the current government done? It started earlier, when Maia Sandu was education minister. Russian was removed from the school curriculum. But that has not significantly changed people’s desire to speak Russian," he said, adding that "even young children speak Russian without any difficulty."

"They went further. They abolished bilingual paperwork and documentation. Despite our calls, we told them: ‘Listen, what is the problem? Let schools teach English. Let English or French be mandatory, but Russian should be mandatory as well,’" Dodon said.

"For Moldovans, knowledge of Russian is a major competitive advantage compared with other citizens. That is why the current authorities are pursuing a hard-line anti-Russian policy," he concluded.