Russia will effectively ban Ukrainian-language education in schools in occupied Ukraine starting on September 1. The Russian Ministry of Education published a draft order on June 23 detailing plans to exclude Ukrainian-language education from the Russian federal basic general education program blocks at all educational levels starting on September 1, 2025. The Ministry of Education claimed that they will be excluding Ukrainian-language education “in connection with the changed geopolitical situation in the world,” but that students will retain the possibility to study Ukrainian in some extracurricular programs. The Russian Ministry of Education previously reported in the 2023-2024 school year that Ukrainian was taught on a “mandatory” basis in occupied Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts and “at the request of parents” in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, occupied Crimea, and Russia’s Bashkortostan Republic. The draft order will also terminate a course on Ukrainian literature. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) condemned the draft order on June 24 as a “manifestation of Moscow’s genocidal policy” towards occupied Ukraine.
Russian authorities have severely limited access to Ukrainian language education as part of their occupation policy since 2014. In occupied Crimea, for example, only 214 students received Ukrainian language education in the 2020/2021 academic year, suggesting that constraints against the Ukrainian language were already in place prior to the full-scale invasion. The Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics occupation administrations similarly cracked down on Ukrainian language and Ukrainian history curricula in schools in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts starting in 2014. The Russian Ministry of Education’s claim that Ukrainian language instruction was “mandatory” in occupied Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts over the past few years directly contradicts statements made by Zaporizhia Oblast occupation officials, which reveal existing constraints on the availability of Ukrainian language instruction. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation Minister of Education and Science Elena Shapurova announced in March 2023 that schools in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast would abolish mandatory Ukrainian language education by the start of the 2023-2024 school year. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky stated in March 2023 that students in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast had the “option” to study Ukrainian for a maximum of three hours a week, but that Russian language instruction was the default. ISW assessed at the time that Russian occupation authorities would likely use the semblance of choice in selecting Ukrainian language education to identify individuals who partook in the ostensibly pro-Ukrainian activity of learning Ukrainian, which Russian authorities could later use as a repressive tool against identified pro-Ukrainian individuals. Further legal limits on Ukrainian language education will further Russify occupied areas, setting multigenerational conditions that will allow the Kremlin to claim that occupied Ukraine is part of Russia on a linguistic basis.
Key Takeaways:
- Russia will effectively ban Ukrainian-language education in schools in occupied Ukraine starting on September 1, setting multigenerational conditions that will allow the Kremlin to claim that occupied Ukraine is part of Russia on a linguistic basis.
- Russia continues to pursue the forced subordination and integration of Ukraine in the legal sphere using real estate law and by expanding the number of magistrates operating on the most local community levels.
- Ukrainian youth continue to face militarization and indoctrination programs in Russia.
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