Since 2016, Ukrainian radio stations have had to comply with language quotas, requiring 35 percent of songs and 60 percent of all broadcasting to be in the Ukrainian language. Similar quotas have been applied to TV channels. During the last three years, these quotas have effectively returned the use of Ukrainian to radio and TV outlets. Ukrainian songs have resurged with frequent broadcasting, after seriously declining for previous years and even decades. Why are the quotas needed in Ukraine? How did the language, through the Ukrainian music industry, finally receive the necessary incentives and conditions for development?
Ukrainian vs. Russian Language
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Nata Zhyzhchenko, frontwoman of the Ukrainian electronic folk band ONUKA, speaks during an interview with AFP in Kyiv on March 6, 2019.
