KIEV, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - A city council in eastern Ukraine overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to give Russian the status of a regional language in the latest chapter in an ongoing battle with the country's authorities.
President Viktor Yushchenko has consistently stated that Ukrainian should be the sole official language in the country since he came to power on the back of the 2004 "orange revolution", but several local authorities in the Russian-speaking east and south have defied him by making Russian a regional language.
Luhansk, where about 70% of the local population considering Russian as their native language, has now become the sixth local authority to pass a resolution elevating the status of Russian. The campaign has sparked a nationwide debate over the status of Russian and calls from the predominantly Ukrainian-speaking west of the country for more measures to protect the Ukrainian language.
Yushchenko sent a letter to Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko on May 12 demanding that measures be taken to bring the decisions of the local councils into line with the country's constitution.
