West Ukraine's Lviv speaks Russian for one day in solidarity with country east

Residents of Lviv, a city in western Ukraine where there is a greater affinity with Europe, will speak Russian on Wednesday in solidarity with the country’s mostly Russian-speaking east and south.

The move was initiated by activists who don’t want “that dishonest people in the Ukrainian parliament use their status to split Ukraine”.

A headband on the city website writes “I will be speaking Russian at home, at work, on transport and with friends – everywhere, on February 26, in solidarity with residents of eastern and southern regions”.

The parliament’s abolition of the law On Principles of State Language Policy has been taken negatively in Lviv. A local publishing house has decided to publish a book in Russian for the first time since it opened 11 years ago, its editor-in-chief Maryana Savka told Tass. It will be a book by Zoya Kazanzhi, a writer from Odessa, a city in southern Ukraine.