Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Rybak supports the equality of status of the Ukrainian and Russian languages, he said in an interview with Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper.
"I am from the Russian-speaking region, and I hate when some MPs call Russian as a language of national minorities," Rybak said, adding: "The Romanian language in Chernivtsi and Hungarian in Transcarpathia can be considered as languages of the national minorities. The Russian language can not be called so, as half the country speaks in it. I support the idea of equal rights for the Russian and Ukrainian languages."
However, he stressed that it is necessary to comply with the Constitution, which states that Ukrainian is the official language.
