The UN recognized Russian-speaking people as the most disadvantaged residents in Ukraine and the Baltic states
Russian is one of the most discriminated languages in Eastern Europe. In particular, we are talking about the Baltic countries and Ukraine, where artificial barriers have been created for the Russian language.
UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues Fernand de Varennes stated this at a video conference of UN Security Council members on the "Arria formula," reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The Special Rapporteur noted that this discrimination is most clearly expressed in the field of education, from where the Russian language is being squeezed out.
“In some Baltic countries and Ukraine, very often these places become more and more difficult for people to live because their rights are limited, they are denied rights... I will talk about those minority groups that are most persecuted.
These are gypsies, Jews and the Russian-speaking population... A lot of Russian-speaking people live in Latvia and Estonia - 200 thousand in Latvia and a huge number of people in Estonia. There are also such people in Lithuania, Ukraine... The Vienna Commission and the Commission for the Protection of Minorities are very critical of recent steps back in terms of reducing the use of minority languages, for example, Russian and Hungarian in Ukraine, as well as Russian in Latvia and Estonia, in particular.
These countries have very difficult situations regarding the use of minority languages in public education, and some even regulate the languages that can be used in private education. Thus, in a significant number of schools, education at state universities, where teaching was mainly carried out in the language of minorities,” said de Varennes.