Ivano-Frankivsk’s town hall. Photo: Igor Kosovych

The city of Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine is to be patrolled by “language inspectors” tasked with limiting the use of Russian while simultaneously promoting the use of Ukrainian among its residents, Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv announced on Monday.

Martsinkiv attributed the decision to introduce language inspectors to the increasing frequent use of Russian in the city, which he described as a problem for Ukraine that would be solved by “introducing a public initiative”.

“Because, unfortunately, the Russian language is being spoken more in Ivano-Frankivsk, and this is a problem for our country and for our city in particular,” he added.

Martsinkiv later explained on regional TV channel Govorit Velyky Lviv that the language inspectors would urge those they overheard speaking Russian in public to switch to Ukrainian. The police would be called if those challenged reacted aggressively, the mayor added, though he did not specify what would happen if a person politely refused to switch to Ukrainian.

Martsinkiv said that the mayors of several Ukrainian cities had already been fined for not using Ukrainian in their public speeches, and added that many Ivano-Frankivsk residents were keen to join the initiative and to promote the wider use of the Ukrainian language in the city.