The Ukrainian Parliament yesterday approved the Memorandum on Peace and Understanding, a text that sets out guidelines to solve the current conflict in the country. Besides calling for the dissolution of armed groups, for national unity, and for participation in Sunday's presidential election, the text opens the door to a renewed legal status for the Russian language, one of the key demands in the east and south of Ukraine.

Thus, the Memorandum on Peace says that Russian will enjoy a "guaranteed status" in the new Ukraine that should be defined after Sunday's election. But the text does not confirm any co-official status for the language.

In 2012, when Viktor Yanukovych was Ukraine's President, the Parliament passed a law that allowed official languages ​​other than Ukrainian to be granted official status at the regional level. This opened the way for the official use of Russian in the entire eastern and southern Ukraine. But earlier this year, and after Yanukovych had been overthrown, the Parliament abrogated the law and reinstated Ukrainian as the sole official language.

On the map above (original by Alex Tora), the percentage of the population of each Ukrainian province who had declared Russian as their only mother tongue in the 2001 census can be seen.

Decentralized state structure

The Memorandum also provides that the Ukrainian Parliament starts a constitutional reform, which according to the text should be based on decentralization and "balance" between national and local levels government. However, no concrete formula is specified. So for instance, no mention to federalism (which is claimed by some sectors in the eastern and southern regions, and also by the Russian Federation) is found in the Memorandum.

The text also provides for the creation of an Anti-Corruption Bureau, and for the passing of a law on local referendums.

Secessionists say Sunday's election will not be held in Donetsk, Luhansk

Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine leaders of the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk say the presidential election will not be held in those two territories because, since the 11th May referendums there, they consider both areas to be independent states. Several election offices in Donetsk and Luhansk were yesterday seized by gunmen, as reported by the Kyiv Post.