Language law divides Ukraine east, west

Three more local Ukrainian governments in Ukraine’s east and south gave Russian language the status of a regional language, in accordance with a new law signed into effect by President Viktor Yanukovych earlier this month: Donestk oblast, Zaporizhya oblast and the city of Sevastopol. The Odesa City Council was the first government to make Russian a regional language last week. Meanwhile, the western Ukrainian oblast of Ternopil declared the law invalid and sent a request to the Constitutional Court to cancel it.

Brad Wells: As we expected, the language law is being played up by politicians in both sides of the country primarily as a mobilization tool to their core electorates. We continue to see little in the way of tackling more bread & butter issues so far in this election campaign.