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Language law and passports: Ukraine's April 2019
Summary
A look back at the week when Kyiv's parliament legislated on language and Moscow moved on citizenship for eastern Ukraine.
What was happening to Ukraine's sovereignty on 29 April 2019, as the country absorbed two decisions taken in the preceding days? One came from its own parliament, the other from Moscow.
On 24 April 2019, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree creating a simplified procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of the occupied districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The next day, 25 April, Russia announced it would fast-track citizenship applications from people living in the conflict areas of eastern Ukraine.
The European Union responded on 25 April, calling the move an attack on Ukraine's sovereignty and saying it would undermine any peace agreement.
A vote in Kyiv
On the same day, 25 April, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed the law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language. The vote was 278 to 38. The law is intended to secure the use of Ukrainian as the country's only official language.
Two tracks, one week
The two decisions were separate in origin and purpose. One was a legislative act on language inside Ukraine; the other was a Russian decree aimed at people living in the territory of the war in Donbas. Yet they landed within a day of each other, and by 29 April 2019 both were part of the political picture in and around Ukraine.
The European Union's reaction placed the citizenship decision in the context of efforts to reach a peace settlement, which it said the move would undermine.
