We would like to give up walking on the thin ice of the language problem, but our beloved media does not let us to do so. At this time, the reader put on the alarm sending us a completely unbelievable news that the Administration of acting President of Ukraine Turchynov ordered to remove Russian-language versions of the official websites of public authorities. Perhaps we analyze the news thoroughly.
KIEV, March 7. / ITAR-TASS /. Administration of appointed by the Verkhovna Rada Acting President of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov has ordered to the Ukrainian bodies of state power to enable Russian-language versions of their official websites, as the source in the Cabinet of Ministers reports to ITAR-TASS .
So, the first thing that can cause some doubts. Unknown “source” reports – as if about an already made decision, consequently, there is no sence for this source to hide. Our inner barometer automatically moved a pointer to the section “fake”.
“Until March 10 all Ukrainian executive, legislative and judicial state authorities must block the access to the Russian versions of their official websites,” – he said. According to the source, the Russian versions of internet pages of 14 key ministries are eliminated by now: the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Social Policy and others, as well as web portals of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine.
Oh, a mysterious source didn’t take into account that it is quite easy to check such order. We will use Internet Wayback Machine service. It will be fun!
- Ministry of Health. As of August 13, 2013 not only Russian version is absent, but so is the English one. It hasn’t changed since then.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As of August 16, 2013 only Ukrainian and English versions are available. It hasn’t changed since then.
- Ministry of Defense. As of August 1, 2013 Russian version is in the website header and it works. Now it’s still in the header, but doesn’t work. We can’t assert, but we think it’s connected to the current events, and is generally predictable.
- Ministry of Finance – we’ll just leave the link to the Russian version for ITAR-TASS here.
- Ministry of Industry. As of February 14, 2014 Russian and English versions are available. The same as now.
- Ministry of Social Policy. As of August 9, 2013 the link to the Russian version in the header is missing, but it can be found by replacing
ukwithruin the URL. However, this version is still empty, as well as in the archive. - Supreme Court. As of 23 of August 2013 – only ukrainian and english versions are available.
- Superior commercial court. As of 15 of August 2013 – only ukrainian and english versions are available.
“Moreover, the Russian language has disappeared from the official web pages of central executive bodies of special status: the Security Service, the Antimonopoly Committee, etc.,” – the source added.
The same applies to the Security Service and the Antimonopoly Committee – Russian version either exists or there was no before.
We have got two questions on this subject.
First, the Ministry of Finance, for how long will you neglect the order of Acting President (a fake one)? Boo, saboteurs!
The second one requires a quotation:
Nowadays, the amount of information produced in the world is growing exponentially, so the question of its authenticity becomes acute. It is therefore of paramount importance to ITAR-TASS team the authenticity of the information received by our subscribers.
Hey ITAR-TASS (The Information Telegraph Agency of Russia), shame on you!
P.S. The one, who would find the Russian versions of the above mentioned pages, will get a beautiful picture a of pug from us for free!
Update: “News” by ITAR-TASS, seems to be picked up by everybody including the Echo of Moscow, Kommersant and RT: