Purposeful destruction of the Ukrainian language (linguocide), as a defining feature of the Ukrainian nation, by russia for many centuries is an indisputable historical fact.

Linguocide is a constituent part of the policy of genocide against Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories. Ukrainian language, as an important factor of national identity and state formation, is one of russia's main goals in the war against Ukraine.

Acts of linguocide of the Ukrainian language are always accompanied by threats,         intimidation, use of physical force, psychological pressure, restraint of liberty, abduction, torture, murder and other crimes against Ukrainians. Illegal acts and documents containing evidence of linguocide may be issued and distributed on behalf of the occupation administrations.

We hope all occupiers’ crimes, including those ones related to linguocide, will  be duly recorded, investigated and brought to justice. The perpetrators must be identified and punished.

For that purpose, the State Language Protection Commissioner of Ukraine Taras Kremin appealed to the Ukrainians and representatives of international community to report about the acts of linguocide against the Ukrainian language (any actions of the occupiers or their collaborators aimed at discrimination or persecution of Ukrainians on the basis of language, forcible expulsion of the Ukrainian language from public space and public use, replacing it with russian).

phone: +380635561279;

email: stoplinguacide@gmail.com

Detailed documentation of acts of linguocide of the Ukrainian language will be important for the arrangement of legal prosecution of criminals and bringing them to justice.

We bring to your attention the following statements of the State Language Protection Commissioner and other facts regarding the acts of genocide of the Ukrainian language.

28.04.23

About 70% of Crimean Tatar children in the temporarily occupied Crimea are deprived of their native language at school. According to Abibulla Seit-Celil, a philologist, and a lecturer at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the russians formally declare that they support the Crimean Tatar language, but it’s not in reality. None of the Crimean Tatar schools, founded in independent Ukraine, is functioning.

3.05.23

Ukrainian Agency Bickerstaff.734 together with the Ukrainian Leadership Academy (ULA) released a book about the kidnapping of children by russians - "Crime without punishment". On May 3, the agency reported about that on Instagram. How to express in words the pain, horror, and righteous anger of Ukrainian mothers whose children were kidnapped by russian invaders? 6,000 children... Most probably, it’s not possible. But if you try, you will get a 50-kilogram book for 6000 pages.

Photo: bickerstaff.734/Instagram

4.05.23

The schoolgirl created a website about russian manipulations in Ukrainian history. Eleventh grader Maria Arshynnikova from Dnipro created a unique project about the history of Ukraine, which debunks russian myths, some of which are even in school textbooks and are still taught in educational institutions.

6.05.23

"People lighted fires with books". History of losses and restoration of Mariupol library named after Korolenko which became a bomb shelter. 

In the first weeks of the war, the library's basements became a shelter for dozens of people. Director Victoria Lisogor spent twenty days of war within the walls of her native book collection. Deep underground storages, strong walls, armored doors - all this created a sense of relative security for a while, a resident of Mariupol recalls. "I didn't think I would have to leave the library," she said. She left the city in a hurry on March 16. The road to Zaporizhzhia was difficult and dangerous. Now she restores the library in Dnipro and collects books with which she plans to return to her hometown.

8.05.23                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

State Language Protection Commissioner Taras Kremin presented an Annual Report on the Status of Compliance with the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language" in 2022. 

Report presents a detailed overview of legislative changes and the state of implementation of certain norms of the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language", analysis of the functioning of the state language and compliance with the language Law in 10 spheres of public life, it contains a separate section devoted to the linguocide of the Ukrainian language in the temporarily occupied territories in the conditions of a full-scale invasion.

11.05.23

Ukraine’s cultural counteroffensive: The rush to erase Russia’s imprint, - “The Washington Post“. Russia itself is doing everything to ensure that de-Russification takes place on the territory of our state,” Zelensky said a month after the start of the invasion in February 2022. Putin in part has justified his bloody assault on Ukraine by saying he is saving Russian people there from cultural erasure. 

But Russia’s war on Ukraine, including the bombing of predominantly Russian-speaking cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv, has only pushed Ukrainians further away”.

13.05.23

In the occupied part of the Luhansk region, more than 6000 children continue to study online in the Ukrainian schools. 

According to the Head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration Artem Lysogor, "These children continue to study with us online, and our teachers teach them. So, it is not every day that they manage to go online for studying because they are really looked for by occupants. Every day we receive information that they are looking for our children.

A school destroyed by shooting 

Photo: EPA/UPG

23.05.23

In the temporarily occupied Crimea, only 197 schoolchildren studied in Ukrainian this year. This was discussed during the round table "De-occupation and reintegration of Crimea: challenges in the field of education", which was held in Ukrinform, said Valentyna Potapova, the head of the national advocacy in education at Almenda Civic Education Center.

"There is one school near Feodosiya, where 182 children studied in Ukrainian to the 9th grade. Also, 15 children studied in Ukrainian at the Sevastopol school. Thus, 197 children studied in the Crimea in their native language," Potapova said.

28.05.23

The repressed language: which Ukrainian words were destroyed by the Soviet government. Authorities in the USSR distorted the Ukrainian language for years, prohibiting and destroying original Ukrainian words, instead of which the Soviet "novoyaz" was introduced.  

When in the early 1920s Ukrainian lands were part of different states, the Soviet power was established in most of them (Left Bank, Dnipro, South, Podillia, Eastern Volyn), and it continued the old tsarist policy of russification there, Radio Liberty writes.

1.06.23

How russia tried to destroy the Ukrainian language and culture: 147 years ago the moscow tsar issued the Emsky decree. The consequences of the criminal decision to ban Ukrainian writing are still being reaped.               

A commemorative plaque dedicated to the Emsky decree in the German city of Bad Ems, Photo by uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Емський_указ

Emsky decree is the traditional name of the conclusions of the Special Meeting, which was signed by the russian emperor Alexander II on May 18 (30) 1876. They were aimed at limiting the use of the Ukrainian language in the russian empire or, as they said, "of small russian language," linguist Ivan Tsihotsky explains.

1.06.23

In the so-called "DNR" (“Donetsk People’s Republic”) the learning of the Ukrainian language will be stopped. Not a single class in the so-called "DNR" chose the Ukrainian language as an option, the leader of the terrorist organization "DNR" Denis Pushylin said. That is why the Ukrainian language will no longer be studied in the territory of the pseudo-formation. 

Earlier, it was reported that russia had already prepared a textbook on the Ukrainian language for junior classes, and the preparation of the textbook for 5-9 would be completed by the end of the year. Then the leader of the pseudo-formation stated that these books would not be relevant in the so-called "DNR".

5.06.23

How russia denationalizes Ukrainian education: research of the Institute of Mass Information. The Institute of Mass Information published the study "Cultural Genocide: Who is introducing russian education into Ukraine’s occupied territories and how". 

Experts and specialists of the Institute of Mass Information have established that russia has developed and implemented four schemes for the “denazification” of education in the occupied parts of Ukraine. These schemes are financed from the russian state budget. They are: “recruiting” russian teachers; “retraining” and “capability building” for collaborators; sending recruited russian students (mainly from pedagogical faculties) to Ukraine as part of the kremlin’s “humanitarian missions”; terrorizing Ukrainian educators.

Kherson region, an urban-type settlement of the city of Arkhangelsk, destroyed building of the secondary school, where the russian military was stationed during the occupation of settlements of the region. 

Photo by: Serhiy Nikitenko

12.06.23

Shot at Ukrainian prisoners for refusing to communicate in russian: the commander of the rosguard was informed of suspicion.

The Security Service of Ukraine documented the criminal activity of another war criminal. He turned out to be the head of the group working with the personnel of the 376th separate operational purpose battalion of the russian guard Konstantin Yudin.

21.06.23

A documentary film about the forced deportation and russification of Ukrainian children "Mutilated Childhood" was released. The project was created by a team of Ukrainian media - online.ua for Children's Day in 2023. 

«MUTILATED CHILDHOOD»,

documentary project

In it, children and their parents told their own stories for the online.ua team. Some        heroes were captured, someone was forcibly taken to the health camp, and others were separated from their parents during the so-called filtration activities. In these "camps", russians are usually engaged in the russification of children, prohibiting to speak Ukrainian and to call home.