Russian journalist and TV host Yevgeny Kiselyov is calm about introducing language quotas on Ukrainian television; He does not plan to "follow the slippery path trampled by Nikolai Yanovich Azarov," and switch to the Ukrainian language without knowing it perfectly.
He told this to the "Observer".
"I take this decision calmly. Unfortunately, I do not know the Ukrainian language so well that I have TV programs on it. I'm absolutely not going to, figuratively speaking, go on a slippery path, trodden by Nikolai Yanovich Azarov. Unlike some politicians who speak with obvious mistakes and with a bad pronunciation, a television journalist can speak in Ukrainian either very well, or in any way, since the Russian language is present on the television market and is understandable to the absolute majority of Ukrainian citizens, "said he.
According to the journalist, "an hour or an hour and a half hours of my daily program just will be fully satisfied" in 25% of the content of the channel, which may not be Ukrainian-speaking. "So I'm not worried. Moreover, if this program will be released after 22 hours, it does not fall under this procedure at all, "added Kiselev.
He also noted that the updated television channel "Tonis", which will be released by its new program, also should not have problems with the implementation of the rule of law. "Most of our journalists are Ukrainian-speaking, including Matvei Ganapolsky, who is equally fluent in both Russian and Ukrainian," Kiselev recalled..
In his opinion, "the only issue that constitutes a certain problem" is how to deal with the hosts and guests of the studio who speak two languages. "But here is the question of law enforcement. The Saltykov-Shchedrin formula about the fact that "the severity of Russian laws is compensated by the non-mandatory nature of their execution" is in fact equally relevant to Ukraine.
Because it was invented in those days when both Russia and Ukraine were one legal space of the Russian Empire, no matter how we treated it today, "the journalist said..
As the "Observer" wrote, on May 23 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed a bill on the introduction of language quotas on Ukrainian television. From now on, national TV channels must have at least 75% of Ukrainian-language content in each time interval from 7:00 to 18:00 and from 18:00 to 22:00 hours.
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