From: Transform Ukraine By Douglas Landro / June 27, 2025
Russia Bans Ukrainian Language in Schools, Deploys More North Korean Forces, and Faces Massive Drone Strike While Ukraine Conducts Prisoner Exchange and Secures International Defense Commitments
Summary of the Day – June 26, 2025
As Russia launched a systematic assault on Ukrainian language and culture by banning Ukrainian-language education in occupied territories starting September 1, the war’s industrial and international dimensions intensified. North Korea prepared to deploy additional troops to Russia as early as July, while Moscow faced its largest drone attack of the year with 50 Ukrainian drones striking across the country. Ukraine conducted another prisoner exchange under the Istanbul agreements and secured substantial international commitments, including Dutch funding for advanced ground vehicles and White House promises of NATO protection. The day underscored the war’s evolution from territorial conflict to civilizational struggle, with language, identity, and international alliances becoming primary battlegrounds.
The Cultural Genocide Accelerates: Russia Bans Ukrainian Language in Schools
The Russian Ministry of Education published a draft order on June 23 detailing plans to exclude Ukrainian-language education from the federal basic general education program at all levels starting September 1, 2025. The ministry claimed it was excluding Ukrainian education “in connection with the changed geopolitical situation in the world,” while noting students could retain access to Ukrainian through some extracurricular programs.
The order will terminate courses on Ukrainian literature and effectively eliminate Ukrainian as a mandatory subject in occupied Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts, where it had been taught “at the request of parents” in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, occupied Crimea, and Russia’s Bashkortostan Republic during the 2023-2024 school year.
Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the draft order on June 24 as a “manifestation of Moscow’s genocidal policy” toward occupied Ukraine. The systematic elimination of Ukrainian language instruction represents an escalation of cultural suppression that began in 2014, when only 214 students received Ukrainian language education in occupied Crimea during the 2020/2021 academic year.
Voice of Ukraine 