The Kyiv Independent reports:

[https://kyivindependent.com/russia-no-longer-protected-minority-language-in-ukraine/]

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed on Dec. 3 an ammendment [sic] removing Russian from the list of languages protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Ironically the article shows a picture of an activist holding a banner that reads "If language didn't matter, people wouldn't be killed for it" during a rally in support of Ukrainian language on July 26, 2025 in Odesa, Ukraine.

The activist was referring to Ukrainian but of course the threat to ban the Russian language after the Maidan coup was one of the key triggers for the civil war in eastern Ukraine and has resulted in a lot of people being killed for it.

How this banning a minority language will impact Ukraine's application to become a member of the EU, nobody knows - presumably it will be another 'EU value' quietly ignored.

But it's good news for anyone who wants to ban Gaelic and Welsh in the UK or French in Canada as obviously it's now OK to ban minority languages so as not to waste money on dual-language road signs, documents, voice-translations etc.