The status of Ukrainian as the sole state language of Ukraine has been challenged by various post-Soviet political forces since it was established in 1989 and enshrined in the Constitution in 1996. Since President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in February 2010, the President and the Party of Regions have put forward several initiatives to promote the Russian language at the expense of Ukrainian as well as the minority languages of Ukraine. Paradoxically, their most important instrument has been the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, the Russian language in Ukraine does not meet the criteria of a regional or minority language according to the Charter nor do those politicians who struggle for the rights of the native Russian language in the name of Russkiy mir represent the democratic values upon which the Charter is built, as perfectly reflected by the history of the unconstitutional language law of 2012.

Michael Moser is Professor of Slavic Linguistics and Philology at the University of Vienna, Ukrainian Free University at Munich, and Pázmány Péter Catholic University at Budapest. His more than 250 publications include several monographs, most recently: Prychynky do istoriyi ukrainskoyi movy (3rd edn, Nova Knyha 2012) and Taras Shevchenko i suchasna ukrayinska mova: Sproba hidnoyi otsinky (NANU et al. 2012).