“Russia successfully resists attempts to restrict the use of the Russian language.” Putin approved the foundations of the state language policy

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the approval of the Fundamentals of the State Language Policy of Russia. The corresponding document is published on the Kremlin website.

The signed document is aimed at the “preservation, development and support” of the Russian language, state languages of the republics of Russia and other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation, as well as to promote the Russian language in the world.

The document says that “with all the unique ethnocultural diversity of the Russian Federation, it is the Russian language that largely determines the all -Russian civil identity”, while all the languages of the peoples of Russia “enjoy the support of the state”, and all citizens of the country are guaranteed the “right to use the native language”.

“Russia successfully resists attempts to restrict the use of the Russian language,“ canceling ”Russian culture“ including Russian literature ”, discrimination of the Russian media, imposing ideological attitudes that contradict traditional Russian spiritual and moral values,” the basis of language policy said.

As one of the threats in the document is “unreasonable use in the areas of official communication of foreign words that have common analogues in the Russian language, and foreign words that are not included in regulatory dictionaries”, as well as “attempts by some foreign states to limit (reduce) the space of use of the Russian language”.

Among the tasks of the state language policy, in particular, the “reduction in the use of foreign words that have common -scale analogues in the Russian language” and “ensuring in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation in the public space of the Cyrillic alphabet” is noted.

• At the end of June 2025, Putin signed the law on the protection of the Russian language, which will enter into force on March 1, 2026. It was assumed that the law would oblige the business to use Russian (and other state languages of the Russian Federation) on signs, information stands, windows, posters, reports about promotions and discounts, work time, and so on. The use of a foreign language (primarily English) was allowed only additionally - next to exactly the same advertising in Russian. However, after criticism of business and government, the bill made amendments. As a result, the law allows us to use foreign words if they do not have common -use analogues in the Russian language, and no longer provides for a ban on the use of Englishism in advertising and Latin in signs.