Russians will not be recognized as indigenous people in Ukraine

The website of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has published a new bill by President Vladimir Zelensky about indigenous peoples.

The bill recognizes indigenous people as an autochthonous ethnic community that was formed on the territory of Ukraine, bears a distinctive language and culture, has traditional, social, cultural or representative bodies, recognizes itself as an indigenous people of Ukraine, is an ethnic minority of the population and does not have a state education outside Ukraine.

Thus, the Russians in Ukraine will not be able to be recognized an indigenous people - they will be denied such a right.

The bill separately designates the concept of the indigenous peoples of Crimea - Crimean Tatars, Karaites and Krymchaks.

In accordance with the bill, the indigenous peoples will be granted broad cultural, economic, educational and linguistic rights. They will be able to create their own educational institutions where they can study in their native language. They will be able to create their own media as well. 

In March 2020, Zelensky signed the law "On complete general secondary education", which abolished Russian-language schools in the country from September 1, 2020. Students from Russian-speaking families will have to study at least 80 percent of subjects in Ukrainian starting from the 5th grade. Education programs in Russia were canceled.