The full-scale invasion of the russian federation and the implementation of the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of Ukrainian as the State Language” had the greatest impact on increasing the presence of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life. This was stated at the online press conference "The struggle in the information and cultural spheres: what Ukrainians think about the state language policy and propaganda against the background of russian aggression" Taras Kremin, the State Language Protection Commissioner said.

During the event, the results of a survey, conducted on May 7-15, 2022 by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with Oxford University in 11 regions of Ukraine, were made public.

In particular, according to the survey, 85% of residents of the Center and Western Ukraine support the introduction of mandatory use of the state Ukrainian language in the service sector. 75% of residents of the Center and the West of Ukraine believe that education in schools and universities should be conducted only in the state language. Another 15% believe that teaching in minority languages is possible at the early stages (at primary school), but in the later stages only in Ukrainian, and only 2% of respondents support the idea of allowing teaching in minority languages at all levels. 

"Implementation of the Law" On Ensuring the Functioning of Ukrainian as the State Language " and the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to declare it constitutional are the factors that significantly influenced the results of this poll and the language situation in the country as a whole", Taras Kremin said. Also, according to Taras Kremin, the adoption of local programs for the development and mastery of the Ukrainian language as a state language, the appearance of relevant deputy ministers and heads of regional state administrations on language issues, and the final abolition after the Commissioner's appeal to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine had a significant impact on increasing the state language presence regarding unconstitutional decisions of local communities on regional languages.

"Undoubtedly, the full-scale russian invasion on February 24 caused tectonic changes in the minds of Ukrainian citizens and further asserted the Ukrainian language as the state language, strengthened the linguistic state imperative of Ukrainians," Taras Kremin concluded.