155-493: The Donetsk People's Republic ( DPR ; Russian : Донецкая Народная Республика (ДНР) , romanized : Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika (DNR) , IPA: [dɐˈnʲetskəjə nɐˈrodnəjə rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə] ) is a republic of Russia , comprising the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine 's Donetsk Oblast , with its capital in Donetsk . The DPR was created by Russian-backed paramilitaries in 2014, and it initially operated as
310-415: A breakaway state until it was illegally annexed in 2022 . The entire territory of DPR is viewed as sovereign territory of Ukraine by nearly all UN member states . Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity in 2014, pro-Russian, counter-revolutionary unrest erupted in the eastern part of the country. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, while armed separatists seized government buildings and proclaimed
465-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
620-503: A full-scale invasion of Ukraine , partially under the pretext of protecting the republics. Russian forces captured more of Donetsk Oblast, which became part of the DPR. In September 2022, Russia proclaimed the annexation of the DPR and other occupied territories, following referendums widely described as fraudulent by commentators. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on countries not to recognise what it called
775-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
930-469: A " totalitarian , North Korea-like statelet". Administration proper in DPR territories was performed by those authorities which performed these functions prior to the war in Donbas. The DPR leadership has also appointed mayors. Some sources described the "Donetsk People's Republic" during this period as a Russian puppet government . On 5 February 2020, Denis Pushilin unexpectedly appointed Vladimir Pashkov ,
1085-652: A Russian citizen and former deputy governor of Russia's Irkutsk Oblast , as the chairman of the government. This appointment was received in Ukraine as a demonstration of direct control over DPR by Russia. Several Russian officials were appointed to cabinet posts and prime ministership of the DPR in June and July 2022. The Head of the Donetsk People's Republic ( Russian : Глава Донецкой Народной Республики , romanized : Glava Donetskoy Narodnoy Respubliki )
1240-528: A collective term for blunders made by Ukrainian politicians: Yanukisms . In social polls conducted since his departure from office, Yanukovych is regarded as one of the worst presidents in Ukrainian history. Viktor Yanukovych was born in the village of Zhukovka near Yenakiieve in Donetsk Oblast , Ukrainian SSR , Soviet Union . Of his childhood he has written: "My childhood was difficult and hungry. I grew up without my mother, who died when I
1395-526: A former member of the special police Alpha Group , a member of the Party of Regions (who allegedly coordinated " Titushky " ( Viktor Yanukovych supporters) during Euromaidan ) and Russian citizens . This government imposed martial law on 16 July. Elections in the DPR and LPR were held on 2 November 2014, after the territories had boycotted the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election on 26 October. The results were not recognised by any country. The DPR adopted
1550-425: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Viktor Yanukovych Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a former Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and
1705-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
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#17327983858461860-718: A law that raised the minimum wage and pensions was passed in the Ukrainian Parliament. As a result of this, the International Monetary Fund suspended its 2008–2009 Ukrainian financial crisis emergency lending programme. According to the IMF, the law breached promises to control spending. During the 2010 presidential campaign, Yanukovych had stated he would stand by this law. According to Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc member of parliament Oleh Shevchuk, Yanukovych broke this election promise just three days after
2015-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
2170-475: A majority of attendees (mainly seniors) voted by hand to join the Donetsk People's Republic. This came despite two hurdles: the raion was outside the borders claimed by the DPR, and the raion had not existed since 18 July 2020. The vote was claimed to be rigged, and organizers threatened anyone voting against it with arrest. On 21 May 2022, the town of Oskil in the Kharkiv Oblast was declared part of
2325-631: A memorandum on 5 February 2015, declaring itself the successor to the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic and Bolshevik revolutionary Fyodor Sergeyev —better known by his alias "Artyom"—as the country's founding father. On 1 January 2015, the Russian ruble went into official circulation with parallel circulation of the Ukrainian hryvnia permitted until 1 September 2015, however, taxes and fees were to be paid in rubles only, and
2480-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
2635-590: A new coalition on 11 March 2010 which included Bloc Lytvyn , Communist Party of Ukraine and Party of Regions that led to the Azarov Government. 235 deputies from the 450-member parliament signed the coalition agreement. On 25 June 2010, Yanukovych criticised 2004 amendments in the Ukrainian Constitution which weakened presidential powers such as control over naming government ministers, passing those functions to parliament. During
2790-567: A partnership, "And Ukraine can't live without this [partnership], because Ukraine is a large country". In early November 2011, Yanukovych claimed that "arms are being bought in the country and armed attacks on government agencies are being prepared." These claims were met with disbelief. For 2012 Yanukovych predicted "social standards will continue to grow" and "improvement of administrative services system will continue". Yanukovich announced $ 2 billion worth of pension and other welfare increases on 7 March 2012. In May 2012, Yanukovych set up
2945-493: A prominent Russian citizen and DPR military leader Arsen Pavlov was killed by an improvised explosive device in his Donetsk apartment's elevator. Another DPR military commander, Mikhail Tolstykh , was killed by an explosion while working in his Donetsk office on 8 February 2017. On 31 August 2018, Head and Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko was killed in an explosion in a cafe in Donetsk. After his death Dmitry Trapeznikov
3100-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
3255-467: A second round of voting was scheduled. In the second round of the election, Yanukovych was initially declared the winner. However, the legitimacy of the election was questioned by Ukrainians, international organizations, and foreign governments following allegations of electoral fraud . The resulting widespread protests became known as the Orange Revolution . The second round of the election
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#17327983858463410-506: A second time on charges of assault. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and did not appeal the verdict. Decades later, Yanukovych characterised his arrests and imprisonment as "mistakes of youth". In 1971, Yanukovych married Lyudmyla Nastenko a niece of Yenakiyeve city judge Oleksandr Sazhyn. In July 1974, Yanukovych enrolled at the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute . In 1976, as a second-year student, he
3565-588: A thousand people, mainly small business owners, protested in Horlivka against corruption and taxes, which included charging customs fees on imported goods. On 2 October 2016, the DPR and LPR held primaries in were voters voted to nominate candidates for participation in the 6 November 2016 elections. Ukraine denounced these primaries as illegal. The DPR finally held elections on 11 November 2018 . These were described as "predetermined and without alternative candidates" and not recognised externally. On 16 October 2016,
3720-582: A turnout of nearly 75%. The results of the referendums were not officially recognised by any government; Germany and the United States also stated that the referendums had "no democratic legitimacy", while the Russian government expressed respect for the results and urged a civilised implementation. On the day after the referendum, the People's Soviet of the DPR proclaimed Donetsk to be a sovereign state with an indefinite border and asked Russia "to consider
3875-437: A unitary Ukraine with decentralised power, and 10.6 per cent supported the status quo. In an August 2015 poll, with 6500 respondents from 19 cities of Donetsk Oblast, 29 per cent supported the DPR and 10 per cent considered themselves to be Russian patriots. The planned referendum was held on 11 May, disregarding Vladimir Putin's appeal to delay it. The organisers claimed that 89% voted in favour of self-rule, with 10% against, on
4030-418: A valid identifying document in the DPR, and Ukrainian licence plates have been declared illegal. Meanwhile, the previous favourable view of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the DPR press was replaced with personal accusations of genocide and "crimes against Donbas", and proposals of organising a tribunal against him in absentia . In March 2020 Russian was declared to be the only state language of
4185-586: A woman, but bought off the victim and the criminal case was closed". The press-service of the Ukrainian Cabinet asserted that Yanukovych suffered for the attempt to defend a girl from hooligans. In 2005, the Party of Regions signed a collaboration agreement with the Russian political party United Russia . In 2008, Yanukovych spoke at a congress of the United Russia party. In January 2006,
4340-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
4495-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
4650-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
4805-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
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4960-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
5115-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
5270-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
5425-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
5580-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
5735-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
5890-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
6045-459: Is the highest office of the Donetsk People's Republic. The following persons have occupied the post: The parliament of the Donetsk People's Republic is the People's Council and has 100 deputies. In March 2016, the DPR began to issue passports despite a 2015 statement by Zakharchenko that, without at least partial recognition of DPR, local passports would be a "waste of resources". In November 2016
6200-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
6355-464: Is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
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6510-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
6665-945: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
6820-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
6975-597: The Constitutional Assembly of Ukraine , a special auxiliary agency under the President for drawing up bills of amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine; the President then can table them in parliament. Bureaucracy and corruption are today hiding behind democratic slogans in Ukraine. The Ukrainian nation is wise and it will understand. Because a small handful of people, who have been plundering
7130-881: The Dokshytsy Raion of the Vitebsk Region which is in present-day Belarus. On various occasions, Yanukovych's family has been dogged by accusations that Fyodor Yanukovych was a member of the Schutzmannschaft during World War II, in particular claims by members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc , which included documents from the NKVD supposedly revealing his involvement with the Schutzmannschaft . However, it has also been stated by residents of Yanuki that Yanukovych's family left for
7285-613: The European Union . Although Yanukovych's parliamentary coalition was not supporting Ukrainian membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), his cabinet agreed to the commission of Ukrainian troops to the Iraq War in support of the United States' War on Terrorism . In 2004, as the prime minister , Yanukovych participated in the controversial Ukrainian presidential election as
7440-480: The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine started an official investigation of the allegedly false acquittal of the criminal convictions which Yanukovych received in his youth. Yuriy Lutsenko , the head of the ministry, announced that forensic tests proved the forgery of the respective documents (issued in instead of 1978) and initially claimed that lack of the formal acquittal precluded Yanukovych from running for
7595-403: The Party of Regions candidate. Yanukovych's main base of support emerged from the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, which favor close ties with neighbouring Russia. In the first round of voting held on 31 October 2004, Yanukovych took second place with 39.3 percent of the votes to opposition leader Viktor Yuschenko with 39.8 percent. Because no candidate passed the 50 percent threshold,
7750-453: The People's Council of the Donetsk People's Republic scheduled a referendum on the republic's entry into Russia as a federal subject for 23–27 September. It was widely described as a sham referendum by commentators and denounced by various countries. On 21 September, Russian President Putin announced a partial mobilization in Russia. He said that "in order to protect our motherland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure
7905-565: The Russian Armed Forces laid siege to Mariupol for almost three months. According to Ukrainian sources, an estimated 22,000 civilians were killed and 20,000 to 50,000 were illegally deported to Russia by June 2022. A vehicle convoy of 82 ethnic Greeks was able to leave the city via a humanitarian corridor. On 19 April 2022, a town hall assembly was reportedly organized in Russian-occupied Rozivka , where
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#17327983858468060-528: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
8215-658: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
8370-511: The fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which
8525-465: The wages of employees at budget-receiving organisations were to be paid out in rubles as well. On 12 February 2015, the DPR and LPR leaders, Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky , signed the Minsk II agreement. According to the agreement, amendments to the Ukrainian constitution should be introduced, including "the key element of which is decentralisation " and the holding of elections in
8680-414: The "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia "immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw". The Head of DPR is Denis Pushilin , and its parliament is the People's Council . The ideology of the DPR is shaped by right-wing Russian nationalism , Russian imperialism , and Orthodox fundamentalism . Russian far-right groups played an important role among the separatists, especially at
8835-501: The 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election. In 2006, a criminal charge was made for the falsification of documents regarding the retraction of Yanukovych's prior conviction. According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta two documents had been forged regarding Yanukovych's robbery in association with rape and assault and battery. The signature of the judge for these documents in Yanukovych's retraction was also forged. On 25 May 2007, Yanukovych
8990-424: The 2010 presidential election when only two lawmakers of Yanukovych's Party of Regions supported a bill to raise pensions for low-incomes. According to Yanukovych, relations between Ukraine and Russia in the gas sector were to be built "according to the rules of the market". He saw the gas agreement signed in 2009 after the 2009 Russia-Ukraine gas dispute as very unprofitable for Ukraine and wanted to "initiate
9145-603: The 2011 World Economic Forum , Yanukovych called Ukraine "one of the leaders on democratic development in Eastern Europe". On 30 November 2010, Yanukovych vetoed a new tax code made by the Azarov Government and earlier approved by the Verkhovna Rada but protested against in rallies across Ukraine (one of the largest protests since the 2004 Orange Revolution). Yanukovych signed a new tax code on 3 December 2010. Yanukovych's Party of Regions wanted to increase social benefits, and raise salaries and pensions. In late 2009,
9300-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
9455-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
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#17327983858469610-503: The DPR and LPR as terrorist organisations. The Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics are located in the historical Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine . Since Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Eastern and Western Ukraine typically have voted for different candidates in presidential elections. Viktor Yanukovych , a Donetsk native, was elected as President of Ukraine in 2010. Eastern Ukrainian dissatisfaction with
9765-581: The DPR and LPR, of which from 48,000 to 96,000 were sent to the front and the rest to logistics support. On 21 February 2022, Russia recognised the independence of the DPR and LPR. The next day, the Federation Council of Russia authorised the use of military force, and Russian forces openly advanced into the separatist territories. Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed", and that Ukraine, not Russia,
9920-458: The DPR announced that all of its citizens had dual Ukrainian /Donetsk People's Republic citizenship. In June 2019, Russia started giving Russian passports to the inhabitants of the DPR and Luhansk People's Republic under a simplified procedure allegedly on "humanitarian grounds" (such as enabling international travel for eastern Ukrainian residents whose passports have expired). Since December 2019 Ukrainian passports are no longer considered
10075-734: The DPR. The town was later recaptured by Ukrainian forces during the Kharkiv Counteroffensive . Dmitry Medvedev , the former Russian president and as of July 2022 vice chairman of the Russian Security Council, in July 2022 shared a map of Ukraine where most of Ukraine, including DPR, had been absorbed by Russia. Der Spiegel reported that forcibly recruited men from Donbas were used as cannon fodder . According to DPR officials, more than 3,000 were killed and over 13,000 wounded, "a casualty rate of 80 percent of
10230-485: The DPR; previously in its May 2014 constitution, the DPR had declared both Russian and Ukrainian its official languages. According to the Ukrainian press , by mid-2021, local residents received half a million Russian passports. Deputy Kremlin Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak stated in a July 2021 interview with Politique internationale that 470,000 local residents had received Russian passports; he added that "as soon as
10385-402: The Donbas before 1917, and that the collaborator Fyodor Yanukovych was an unrelated individual. Others, particularly members of the Party of Regions, have claimed that the documents were a falsehood with the intention of disparaging Yanukovych ahead of elections. By the time he was a teenager, Yanukovych's father had remarried. However, Viktor left home due to conflicts with his stepmother, and
10540-463: The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) as independent states. This sparked the war in Donbas , part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War . The DPR and LPR are often described as puppet states of Russia during this conflict. They received no international recognition from any United Nations member state before 2022. On 21 February 2022, Russia recognised the DPR and LPR as sovereign states . Three days later, it launched
10695-506: The Donetsk Region. He was arrested on charges of separatism and illegal seizure of power but released in a hostage swap. Alexander Borodai , a Russian citizen claiming to be involved in the Russian annexation of Crimea, was appointed as prime minister, while Igor Girkin was made Defence Minister. Borodai had a past working for an openly anti-semitic and fascist Russian newspaper Zavtra which had called for pogroms against Jews. On
10850-471: The Donetsk Republic. Polling during this period indicated that around 18 per cent of Donetsk Oblast residents supported the seizures of administrative buildings while 72 per cent disapproved. Twelve per cent were in favour of Ukraine and Russia uniting into a single state, a quarter were in favour of regional secession to join Russia, 38.4 per cent supported federalisation, 41.1 per cent supported
11005-695: The EU and instead accept a Russian trade deal and loan bailout. This sparked mass protests against him that ultimately led to his ousting as president. The civil unrest peaked in February 2014, when almost 100 protesters were killed . Ukraine's political forces managed to reach an agreement . After the agreement was signed, Yanukovych, fearing for his life and the safety of his family , left Kyiv without warning, first for Kharkiv and later for Crimea . The next day, 22 February, Ukraine's parliament voted to remove him from his position and schedule early elections on
11160-411: The EU. He pledged to remain non-aligned in defence policy. However, his years in power saw what analysts described as democratic backsliding , which included the jailing of Tymoshenko, a decline in press freedom and an increase in cronyism and corruption. In November 2013, Yanukovych made a sudden decision, amidst economic pressure from Russia, to withdraw from signing an association agreement with
11315-584: The European Union, NATO and Russia will take part in." Yanukovych wants Ukraine to "neither join NATO nor the CSTO ". He stated on 7 January 2010 that Ukraine is ready to consider an initiative by Dmitry Medvedev on the creation of a new Europe collective security system stating "And we're ready to back Russia's and France's initiatives". Yanukovych stated during the 2010 presidential election-campaign that
11470-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
11625-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
11780-560: The LPR and DPR within the lines of the Minsk Memorandum . In return, the rebel-held territory would be reintegrated into Ukraine. In an effort to stabilise the ceasefire in the region, particularly the disputed and strategically important town of Debaltseve , Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for a UN-led peacekeeping operation in February 2015 to monitor compliance with the Minsk agreement. The Verkhovna Rada did not ratify
11935-526: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
12090-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
12245-564: The Russian occupation of the peninsula, to seize police and government buildings in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast. Girkin's unit drove off an initial response by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and successive assaults by government, in what was to become an eighty-four day siege . Girkin later said that he had been "the one who pulled the trigger of war". On 15 April 2014, acting Ukrainian President Olexander Turchynov announced
12400-471: The Russian parliament Boris Gryzlov . Yanukovych's immediate predecessor, Yushchenko, did not attend the ceremony, nor did the Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko , and her party, Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko . On 3 March 2010, Yanukovych suspended his membership in the Party of Regions as he was barred by the Constitution from heading a political party while president, and handed over leadership in
12555-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
12710-458: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
12865-565: The Ukrainian government "in the near future". The document did not specifically state the intention of DPR and LPR to be annexed by Russia. The general mobilization in the Donetsk People's Republic began on 19 February 2022; five days before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine . Tens of thousands of local residents were forcibly mobilized for the war . According to the Eastern Human Rights Group, as of mid-June, about 140,000 people were forcibly mobilized in
13020-467: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
13175-496: The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, and Oleksandr Moroz 's Socialist Party. This government was marred by growing conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. Yanukovych's Party of Regions support allowed for the establishment of Yuriy Yekhanurov 's government in late 2005. In October 2004, Ukrainian deputy Hryhory Omelchenko accused Yanukovych of having been a member of "a group of individuals who brutally beat and raped
13330-547: The annexation . The resolution received a vast majority of 143 countries in support of condemning Russia's annexation, 35 abstaining, and only 5 against condemning Russia's annexation. In early April 2014, a Donetsk People's Council was formed out of protesters who occupied the building of the Donetsk Regional Council on 6 April 2014. The New York Times described the self-proclaimed state as neo-Soviet , while Al Jazeera described it as neo-Stalinist and
13485-504: The beginning of the conflict. Organizations such as the UN Human Rights Office and Human Rights Watch have reported human rights abuses in the DPR , including internment, torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced conscription , as well as political and media repression. The DPR People's Militia has also been held responsible for war crimes , among them the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 . Ukraine views
13640-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
13795-424: The building. On 7 May, Russian president Vladimir Putin asked the separatists to postpone the proposed referendum to create the necessary conditions for dialogue. Despite Putin's comments, the Donetsk Republic group said they would still carry out the referendum. The same day, Ukraine's security service (SBU) released an alleged audio recording of a phone call between a Donetsk separatist leader and leader of one of
13950-460: The campaign. Yanukovych's campaign was expected to have cost $ 100 to $ 150 million. On 11 December 2009, Yanukovych called for his supporters to go to Maidan Nezalezhnosti , Kyiv's Independence Square, in case of election fraud . Early vote returns from the first round of the election held on 17 January showed Yanukovych in first place with 35.8% of the vote. He faced a 7 February 2010 runoff against Tymoshenko, who finished second (with 24.7% of
14105-705: The changes in the constitution needed for the Minsk agreement. On 20 May 2015, the leadership of the Federal State of Novorossiya , a proposed confederation of the DPR and LPR, announced the termination of the confederation project. On 15 June 2015, several hundred people protested in the centre of Donetsk against the presence of BM-21 "Grad" launchers in a residential area. The launchers had been used to fire at Ukrainian positions, provoking return fire and causing civilian casualties. A DPR leader said that its forces were indeed shelling from residential areas (mentioning school 41 specifically), but that "the punishment of
14260-557: The country for 20 years is only a handful, from which the whole society, the whole state and our image in the world have been suffering. The interest of the Ukrainian nation is that the practice was put an end to... The country has to change. We need to reverse our approaches 180 degrees, and we will do it. The Ukrainian nation stimulates us to. -- President Yanukovych in Warsaw 4 February 2011, speaking about Ukrainian corruption and cronyism Amid controversy Ukrainian lawmakers formed
14415-572: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
14570-413: The current level of Ukraine's cooperation with NATO was sufficient and that the question of the country's accession to the alliance was therefore not urgent. "The Ukrainian people don't currently support Ukraine's entry to NATO and this corresponds to the status that we currently have. We don't want to join any military bloc". On 27 May 2010 Yanukovych stated he considered Ukraine's relations with NATO as
14725-495: The declaration of a Donetsk People's Republic. According to the Russian ITAR-TASS , the declaration was voted by some regional legislators, while Ukrainian media claimed that neither the Donetsk city council nor district councils of the city delegated any representatives to the session. The political leadership initially consisted of Denis Pushilin , self-appointed as chairman of the government, while Igor Kakidzyanov
14880-478: The enemy is everyone's shared responsibility". On 2 July 2015, DPR leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko ordered local elections to be held on 18 October 2015 "in accordance with the Minsk II agreements". The 2015 Ukrainian local elections were set for 25 October 2015. This was condemned by Ukraine. On 4 September 2015, there was a sudden change in the DPR government, where Denis Pushilin replaced Andrey Purgin in
15035-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
15190-538: The false pretext of "genocide of Russian speakers", another approx. 3 mln. either fled or were killed, resulting in total in 80% decrease of Donbas population. According to political scientist Taras Kuzio, this amounts to "destruction, depopulation, and genocide". On 6 April, 2014, pro-Russian rebel leaders announced that a referendum on whether Donetsk Oblast should "join the Russian Federation ", would take place "no later than May 11th, 2014." Additionally,
15345-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
15500-535: The first two floors of the government headquarters of the Regional State Administration (RSA), breaking down doors and smashing windows. The separatists demanded a referendum to join Russia, and said they would otherwise take unilateral control and dismiss the elected government. When the session was not held, the unelected separatists held a vote within the RSA building and overwhelmingly backed
15655-649: The former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe ,
15810-692: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
15965-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
16120-659: The government can also be attributed to the Euromaidan Protests which began in November 2013, as well as Russian support due to tension in Russia–Ukraine relations over Ukraine's geopolitical orientation. President Yanukovych's overthrow in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution led to protests in Eastern Ukraine, which gradually escalated into an armed conflict between the newly formed Ukrainian government and
16275-419: The grounds that he had withdrawn from his constitutional duties, rather than through following the impeachment process outlined in the Ukrainian constitution . Some of his own party voted for his removal. On 24 February 2014, the new government issued a warrant for Yanukovych's arrest, accusing him of being responsible for the killing of protestors. Yanukovych went into exile in Russia, claiming to still be
16430-401: The group's leaders appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to send Russian peacekeeping forces to the region. On 7 April, between 1,000 and 2,000 people attended a rally in Donetsk pushing for a Crimea-style referendum on independence from Ukraine. Ukrainian media claimed that the proposed referendum had no status quo option. Afterwards, 200–1,000 separatists stormed and took control of
16585-436: The initial fighting force." Human rights activists reported a huge – up to 30,000 people as of August 2022 – death toll among mobilized recruits in clashes with the well-trained Armed Forces of Ukraine . On 16 August 2022, Vladimir Putin stated that "the objectives of this operation are clearly defined – ensuring the security of Russia and our citizens, protecting the residents of Donbass from genocide." On 20 September 2022,
16740-474: The issue of our republic's accession into the Russian Federation ". It also announced that it would not participate in the Ukrainian presidential election which took place on 25 May. The first full Government of the DPR was appointed on 16 May 2014. It consisted of several ministers who were previously Donetsk functionaries, a member of the Makiivka City Council, a former Donetsk prosecutor ,
16895-437: The legitimate head of state. On 18 June 2015, Yanukovych was officially deprived of the title of president by parliament. On 24 January 2019, he was sentenced in absentia to a thirteen year prison term for high treason by a Ukrainian court. In various polling conducted since his departure from office, Yanukovych was ranked the least popular president in Ukraine's independent history. Yanukovych has also given his name to
17050-418: The local armed militias. The pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine was originally characterised by riots and protests which had eventually escalated into the storming of government offices. In 2011, Ukrainian Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts had a combined population of 6,1mln. As a result of Russian military aggression in 2014, 2 million had to leave the region as refugees. After full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, under
17205-584: The main institutions of the city observed by the Monitoring Mission seemed to be working normally as of 16 April. On 22 April, separatists agreed to release the session hall of the building along with two floors to state officials. The ninth and tenth floors were later released on 24 April. On the second day of the Republic, organisers decided to pour all of their alcohol out and announce a prohibition law after issues arose due to excessive drinking in
17360-403: The morning of 8 April, the 'Patriotic Forces of Donbas', a pro-Kyiv group that was formed on 15 March earlier that year by 13 pro-Kyiv NGOs, political parties and individuals, issued a statement "cancelling" the other group's declaration of independence, citing complaints from locals. The Donetsk Republic organisation continued to occupy the RSA and upheld all previous calls for a referendum and
17515-414: The most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as
17670-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
17825-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
17980-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
18135-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
18290-421: The party and its parliamentary faction to Mykola Azarov . Yanukovych said, "Ukraine's integration with the EU remains our strategic aim", with a "balanced policy, which will protect our national interests both on our eastern border – I mean with Russia – and of course with the European Union". According to Yanukovych, Ukraine must be a " neutral state " which should be part of a "collective defence system which
18445-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
18600-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
18755-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
18910-561: The post of prime minister. In November 2009 Yanukovych stated that he conceded defeat only to avoid violence. "I didn't want mothers to lose their children and wives their husbands. I didn't want dead bodies from Kyiv to flow down the Dnipro . I didn't want to assume power through bloodshed." Following his electoral defeat in 2004, Yanukovych led the main opposition party against the Tymoshenko government made up of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine,
19065-471: The presidential post. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus at Yanukovych's invitation conducted a public prayer service at Kyiv Pechersk Lavra before Yanukovych's presidential inauguration. Kirill also attended the inauguration along with High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton , United States National Security Advisor James Jones and speaker of
19220-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
19375-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
19530-565: The release of their leader Pavel Gubarev . On 8 April, about a thousand people rallied in front of the RSA listening to speeches about the Donetsk People's Republic and to Soviet and Russian music . Ukrainian media stated that a number of Russian citizens, including one leader of a far-right militant group, had also taken part in the events. 12 April saw the start of a military conflict. Russian nationalist and former intelligence officer Igor "Strelkov" Girkin led an armed team of 52 volunteers and mercenaries from Crimea, where he had participated in
19685-469: The republic's authorities. After a Normandy four meeting in which the participants agreed that elections in territories controlled by DPR and LPR should be held according to Minsk II rules, both postponed their planned elections to 21 February 2016. Vladimir Putin used his influence to reach this delay. The elections were then postponed to 20 April 2016 and again to 24 July 2016. On 22 July the elections were again postponed to 6 November. In July 2016, over
19840-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
19995-489: The result. Tad Devine , an associate of Rick Gates and Paul Manafort , wrote Yanukovych's victory speech. Ukraine's parliament had (on 16 February) fixed 25 February 2010 for the inauguration of Yanukovych as president. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree endorsing a plan of events related to Yanukovych's inauguration on 20 February 2010. Yushchenko also congratulated and wished Yanukovych "to defend Ukrainian interests and democratic traditions" at
20150-516: The role of speaker of the People's Council and, in his first decision, fired Aleksey Aleksandrov, the council's chief of staff, Purgin's close ally. This happened in absence of Purgin and Aleksandrov who were held at the border between Russia and DPR, preventing their return to the republic. Aleksandrov was accused of "destructive activities" and an "attempt to illegally cross the border" by the republic's Ministry of Public Security. Russian and Ukrainian media commented on these events as yet another coup in
20305-655: The safety of our people and people in the liberated territories", he decided to declare a partial mobilization. On 30 September 2022, Russia's president Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of the DPR along with the Luhansk People's Republic and two other oblasts of Ukraine in an address to both houses of the Russian parliament . On 12 October 2022, the United Nations General Assembly voted in Resolution ES-11/4 to condemn
20460-449: The seat in the 2006 parliamentary election . However, the latter statement was corrected within days by Lutsenko, who conceded that the outcome of the investigation into the legality of the Yanukovych's acquittal could not affect his eligibility to run for the parliament seat since the deprivation of his civil rights due to the past convictions would have expired anyway due to the statute of limitations . Yanukovych's Party of Regions won
20615-653: The situation in Donbass is resolved ....The general procedure for granting citizenship will be restored." Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of
20770-430: The splinter groups of former Russian National Unity Alexander Barkashov . In the call, the voice said to be Barkashov insisted on falsifying the results of the referendum. SBU stated that this tape is a definitive proof of the direct involvement of Russian government with preparations for the referendum. Ukrainian authorities released separatist leader Pavel Gubarev and two others in exchange for three people detained by
20925-453: The start of a military counteroffensive to confront the pro-Russian militants, and on 17 April, tensions de-escalated as Russia, the US, and the EU agreed on a roadmap to eventually end the crisis. However, officials of the People's Republic ignored the agreement and vowed to continue their occupations until a referendum was accepted or the government in Kyiv resigned. The OSCE reported that all
21080-679: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
21235-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
21390-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
21545-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
21700-608: The vote). After all ballots were counted, the Ukrainian Central Election Commission declared that Yanukovych won the runoff election with 48.95% of the vote compared with 45.47% for Tymoshenko. Election observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe ( OSCE ) said there were no indications of serious fraud and described the vote as an "impressive display" of democracy. Tymoshenko withdrew her subsequent legal challenge of
21855-704: Was a member of the Verkhovna Rada from 2006 to 2010. A member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions , Yanukovych provoked mass protests — the Euromaidan — against his rejection of closer integration with the European Union and was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014, at the time neighboring Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea and started the Russo-Ukrainian War . Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia. Before entering national politics, Yanukovych
22010-427: Was appointed as head of the government until September 2019 when he was nominated mayor of Elista , capital of Kalmyk Republic in Russia. According to Ukrainian authorities, 50 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in clashes with Donbas separatists in 2020. In January 2021, the DPR and LPR stated in a "doctrine Russian Donbas" that they aimed to seize all of the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast under control by
22165-604: Was appointed as the Head of the Administration (i.e. Governor). President Leonid Kuchma appointed Yanukovych to the post of prime minister following Anatoliy Kinakh 's resignation. Yanukovych began his term as prime minister on 21 November 2002 following a 234-vote confirmation in the Ukrainian parliament, eight more than needed. In foreign affairs, Yanukovych's cabinet was considered to be politically close to Russia, although declaring support for Ukrainian membership in
22320-598: Was assigned the post of appointed chairman of the Government Chiefs Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States . In 2009, Yanukovych announced his intent to run for president in the then upcoming presidential election . He was endorsed by the Party of Regions and the Youth Party of Ukraine . Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko accused Yanukovych of financial fraud during
22475-406: Was brought up by his Polish paternal grandmother, originally from Warsaw . His grandfather and great-grandparents were Lithuanian-Poles . Yanukovych has half-sisters from his father's remarriage, but has no contact with them. On 15 December 1967, at the age of 17, Yanukovych was sentenced to three years imprisonment for participating in a robbery and assault. On 8 June 1970 he was convicted for
22630-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
22785-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
22940-423: Was named as the commander of the People's Army. Vyacheslav Ponomarev became the self-proclaimed mayor of the city of Sloviansk . Ukrainian-born pro-Russian activist Pavel Gubarev , an Anti-Maidan activist, a former member of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity paramilitary group in 1999–2001 and former member of the nazbol Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine , proclaimed himself the People's Governor of
23095-504: Was occupied in what became known as the Orange Revolution . The Ukrainian Supreme Court ultimately nullified the runoff election and ordered a rerun, which Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko. Yanukovych ran for President again in the 2010 election , this time beating Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in an election that was judged free and fair by international observers. Yanukovych argued in favour of economic modernisation, increased spending and, initially, continuing trade negotiations with
23250-571: Was promoted to director of a trucking division within the Ordzhonikidzeugol coal-mining company. His appointment as the chief manager marked the start of his managerial career as a regional transport executive. He held various positions in transport companies in Yenakiieve and Donetsk until 1996. Yanukovych's political career began when he was appointed as a Vice-Head of Donetsk Oblast Administration in August 1996. On 14 May 1997, he
23405-522: Was subsequently annulled by the Supreme Court of Ukraine , and in the repeated run-off, Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko with 44.2 percent to Yushchenko's 51.9 percent. After the election, the Ukrainian parliament passed a non-binding motion of no confidence in Yanukovych's government, urging outgoing President Kuchma to dismiss Yanukovych and appoint a caretaker government. Five days after his electoral defeat, Yanukovych declared his resignation from
23560-563: Was the Governor of his native Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002. He was simultaneously the Chairman of the oblast's legislature from 1999 to 2001. Yanukovych first ran for president in the 2004 election , where he advanced to the runoff and was declared the winner against former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko . However, allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation caused widespread protests and Kyiv 's Independence Square
23715-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
23870-414: Was to blame for their collapse. A Russian military attack into Ukrainian government-controlled territory began on the morning of 24 February, when Putin announced a "special military operation" to " demilitarise and denazify " Ukraine. In the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine , around 55% of Donetsk Oblast came under the control of Russia and the DPR by June 2022. In the south of Donetsk Oblast,
24025-462: Was two. I went around bare-footed on the streets. I had to fight for myself every day. Yanukovych is of Russian , Polish and Belarusian descent. Yanukovych is a surname of Belarusian origin, Yanuk being a derivative of the Catholic name Yan ("John"). His mother was a Russian nurse and his father, Fyodor Yanukovych, was a Polish-Belarusian locomotive-driver, originally from Yanuki in
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