OSCE envoy to discuss plight of Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, Baltics

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Lamberto Zannier will discuss discrimination against the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic states on Monday.

Zannier is paying a working visit to Russia. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier said that during his trip he would meet with the top officials of the Russian Ministry of Education, the Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation and the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs. Besides, Zannier will take part in the second Moscow Conference on Countering Anti-Semitism, Xenophobia and Racism organized by the Russian Jewish Congress.
Discrimination of Russian-speaking population

The issue of observing the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine is regularly raised by Moscow in the OSCE. According to Russian Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich, Russia expects the UN High Commissioner on National Minorities to come up with specific proposals to resolve the situation.

Moscow has stressed on numerous occasions that Kiev had made discrimination against the Russian-speaking population its national strategy. In September 2017, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko signed the law on education. It envisages, in particular, that as of 2020, instruction at schools and higher educational institutions should be conducted in the official state language. The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that it is obvious that the law’s key objective is infringing upon the interests of millions of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking residents.

The onslaught against the Russian language continues in the Baltic states as well. Latvia has endorsed a reform, according to which the ethnic minorities’ schools will switch to teaching most subjects in the Latvian language by 2021. The move has sparked discontent among Latvia’s Russian-speaking community, which accounts for about 40% of the country’s population. The issue of statelessness of tens of thousands of Russian-speaking residents of Latvia and Estonia has remained unresolved.

In June, Moldova’s Constitutional Court recognized the law enshrining the international communication language of Russian "outdated." The country’s President Igor Dodon and Moldova’s Party of Socialists, which announced plans to hammer out an alternative law, condemned that decision.