State employees in Ukraine are required by law to use the official language: Ukrainian. But during the war, many officials conducted conversations or interviews in other languages - including President Zelensky. Stricter penalties for violations will apply from Saturday.
In Ukraine, the language commissioner, Taras Kremin, has threatened officials with fines for speaking in German, English and Russian. "Under the conditions of martial law, individual state employees continue to violate the official language law," local media quoted Kremin as saying, citing a Facebook post.
A check has shown that around two dozen state employees have not spoken Ukrainian on duty since March. As an example, the agency cited statements made in English by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during visits by US actor Sean Penn and British billionaire Richard Branson.
A German-language interview by the governor of Chernivtsi, Serhij Ossachuk, for the Welt television channel was also criticized. The language guards also criticized an interview conducted in Russian by the mayor of Odessa, Hennady Trukhanov, with the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".
Kremin emphasized that the current language law will be tightened from Saturday. After that, such violations can be punished with fines of up to 320 euros. The basis is a law passed in 2019 shortly before Zelenskyj took office. This prescribes Ukrainian in many areas of life in order to push back the Russian language.
From Saturday, corporate websites must have Ukrainian as the main language. Ukrainian is also a mandatory corporate language. There have long been strict quotas for print media, radio and television.
