The president's remarks followed the decision by an overwhelming majority of legislators in the eastern town of Luhansk to grant Russian the status of a regional language in the latest chapter of an ongoing battle with the country's authorities.
"No law gives regional status to a language," Yushchenko said, adding that changing a language's status required an initiative from the president or the two thirds of the constitutional majority in parliament.
Yushchenko has consistently said Ukrainian should be the sole official language in the country since coming to power on the back of the 2004 "orange revolution".
Luhansk, where about 70% of the local population considers Russian its native language, was the sixth local authority in eastern and southern Ukraine to elevate Russian to regional language status. 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 May 12 demanding that measures be taken to bring the decisions of the local councils into line with the country's constitution.
