During the live call-in show with Head of the DPR Denis Pushilin, he was asked a question about the timeliness of grating Russian the status of state language.
“Let’s start with the fact that about 99% of the DPR residents consider Russian their mother tongue, respectively, they speak, think, communicate in it. But as for any sorts of infringement on languages or minorities, we have never had this.
I remind you that more than 130 nationalities live in the DPR. There have never been any interethnic contradictions, and I do not even see any prerequisites for them. Accordingly, with regard to the Russian language, this is absolutely logical. In 2014, we came to the conclusion that we needed two state languages, which was an element of our peace initiatives and a desire to negotiate. We still want to negotiate and do this in Minsk, but now the Russian language is closer to us.
We do not impinge on other languages, we bring them to the status of optional. I believe that children should learn as many languages as possible, but why should it be only Ukrainian? There should be one state language. It is closer and more understandable for us that the state language is Russian. I do not consider this a mistake,” Denis Pushilin said.