Around a third (some 30%) of Ukrainian citizens believe that Ukraine should have two state languages, Ukrainian and Russian; at the same time, almost two thirds (some 60.9%) believe that Ukrainian must be the only state language.

These are the results of a poll, carried out by Democratic Initiatives Fund and Ukrainian Sociology Service company, and presented in UNIAN today.

At the same time, according to the results of the poll, the adherents of Ukrainian as the only state language divide into two camps: some 42% of them support the status-quo of Ukrainian as the only state language, and some 19% support the formula “Ukrainian – the only state language, but Russian may be recognized as official in the regions, where the Russian minority lives”.

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During the last year, the number of adherents of two state languages – Ukrainian and Russian – has trimmed by some 5%, from some 35.3% in December of 2006 to some 30.3% in December of 2007. In the central and north-eastern regions of Ukraine, the number of two state languages adherents trimmed by some 7%.

Among those who support granting a state status to Russian language, only some 19% argue that their language rights are infringed. Some 20% explain that they got used to Russian, and Ukrainian is inconvenient for them; some 3.3% do not want to study Ukrainian, and some 2.6% said they are irritated by Ukrainian.

At the same time, more than 70% of those who support granting a state status to Russian, confess that they personally do not feel any inconveniences or restrictions connected with their using Russian. Thus, some 36% of them state that they “may freely use Russian language, but want to insure from possible restrictions”, and some 35.5% claim that “in my region, the Russian-language population feels normally, but I heard that Russian-speaking rights are violated in other regions”.

The poll was carried out in all regions of Ukraine, the error margin does not exceed 2.3%.