The Russian Ministry of Education has excluded Ukrainian from the school curriculum, which was compulsory in the occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
According to Holos Kryma, the decision was made due to the "changing geopolitical situation in the world."
"The new order applies to primary, basic and secondary education programs, which provides for the complete abolition of the Ukrainian language course. Currently, 736 hours are spent studying Ukrainian as a native language. Of these, 260 are in grades 1-4, 340 in grades 5-9, and 136 in grades 10-11. The document also removes the study of Ukrainian literature from the school curriculum for grades 1-9, which is designed for 282 hours. This subject remains only for grades 10-11," the news agency said.
Holos Kryma noted that back in November 2024, Putin said that the Ukrainian language "has its own beauty and charm, as well as the entire Ukrainian culture." He called for avoiding the imposition of the Russian language in the occupied territories, recalling the negative experience of the USSR, and emphasized that policy in this area should be "soft and natural."
"How can we ban their language and culture? We don't even think about it," he assured.
In the spring of 2025, it became known that a new school textbook on Ukrainian literature was censored in Russia. In particular, the mention of everything related to Ukraine, including the origin of the writer Nikolai Gogol, was cut out of it.
Previously, 249 children studied in Ukrainian in Crimean schools, which was 0.2% of all students on the Crimean peninsula. Prior to the annexation of Crimea, 13,589 children studied in Ukrainian on the peninsula.
At the same time, Amnesty International reported that Ukrainian teachers in the Russian-occupied territories faced a choice - to flee their homes or to teach a curriculum based on Russian state propaganda.
In June 2024, Human Rights Watch stated that the Russian occupation authorities were banning the Ukrainian language and curriculum, imposing the Russian education system, spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda, and introducing the Russian language of instruction in educational institutions in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.
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