Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy signed the language law right at the parliament rostrum and declared that he was going to pass it to the President for approval and signing.

The Speaker signed the language bill at a plenary meeting on Tuesday after all four draft laws presented by the pro-Russian opposition bloc had been rejected. The opposition proposed to cancel the voting in favour of the language bill. Only 30 deputies supported their proposal.

During the debates Mykola Knyazhytsky, head of the committee on culture and religious matters, reminded that under the repression regime a lot of Ukrainians had been eliminated exactly because they were champions of the Ukrainian language.

Roman Semenukha (Self-Reliance faction) pointed out that the fierce criticism of the language law is nothing else but fakes of Russian propaganda.

“The language law is our weapon because Putin believes that he has to be everywhere where the Russian language is spoken”, noted Serhiy Yevtushok (Homeland faction).

“Right from the beginning when the bill was registered all forces of hell seemed to have risen in order to disrupt its passage through Parliament, – commented Speaker Andriy Parubiy. – But they have met the strong will of the Ukrainian people. And they have seen the highly-professional well-coordinated work of the team of Ukrainian deputies”.

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada thanked all the lawmakers who had contributed to preparing the bill to facilitate the use of Ukrainian as the State language. “I would like to warn all those who think that the political situation has changed, – declared the Speaker. – As soon as you will attempt to revise the language law or the legislations dealing with decommunization and the Church issues you will feel all the anger and mighty will of the Ukrainian people. We are not going to allow any revision of the achievements that Ukrainian Parliament has gained in recent years”.