Did the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, seek to register the Ukrainian language at the United Nations as an official language? Was his request denied, as the UN does not recognize the Ukrainian language as independent but instead considers it a dialect? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no evidence supporting these assertions. Ukraine is internationally recognized as an independent country, and the Ukrainian language as its official language. The claim that Ukrainian does not exist as a language is propagated by Russia.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on January 29, 2024, on TikTok by @world.news032.
The text overlay on the video (translated from Russian to English by Lead Stories staff) states:
Briefly about why the Ukrainian language is not included in the UN. Once, Kravchuk wanted to register the Ukrainian language so that he could speak it with ambassadors! Do you know what they answered him? 'The Ukrainian language is not an independent language and is a dialect that makes up 70% Russian, 12% Romanian, 12% Polish. And the rest are derivatives of Hungarian, Austrian, Lithuanian words! Ukrainian is nothing more than a dialect or patois.' Patois is the locally limited speech of certain groups of the population, mainly rural.
Below is how the post appeared on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 31 10:50: 37 2023 UTC)
The United Nations (UN) Media Documents Center emailed Lead Stories on January 30, 2024, in response to questions about these claims. The email stated:
Information on the Organization's office languages is available here https://www.un.org/en/our-
work/official-languages#:~: text=There%20are%20six% 20official%20languages,%2C% 20French%2C%20Russian%20and% 20Spanish. Correspondence including the name of the first President of Ukraine is available here https://digitallibrary.un.org/ search?ln=en&p=Kravchuk%20&f=& c=Resource%20Type&c=UN% 20Bodies&sf=&so=d&rg=50&fti=0 Further, we kindly bring to your attention the resources of the UN Dag Hammarskjold Library https://ask.un.org/faq/14463
Lead Stories found no corresponding documents among these sources and on the UN's official website proving the disseminated claims. Lead Stories contacted the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations for a comment and will update this article if a response is received.
A search for the phrases "The first President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, sought to register the Ukrainian language at the United Nations," (archived here) and "UN does not recognize Ukrainian language as an independent language" (archived here) conducted on January 31, 2024, using Google News' index of credible news sites did not yield any evidence-based reports on these claims.
Ukraine is internationally recognized as an independent country, and the Ukrainian language is its official language. The claim that Ukrainian does not exist as a language is propagated by Russian propaganda. According to a report by Chatham House (archived here), a renowned global think tank focusing on international affairs, the concept of Ukraine and Belarus being subnations within a unified entity called the "triune" or all-Russian nation is an ideological framework rooted in imperial history. From the early 2000s onward, the Kremlin has reintroduced the Russo-centric narrative as a key element of a widespread disinformation effort (archived here). This narrative aims to justify the idea that Belarus and Ukraine fall under Russia's sphere of influence, implying that their independent existence is unsustainable without Russian control.
The UN has six official languages: English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese.
