Ukraine's ruling party has triggered violent protests with a move to upgrade the official status of the Russian language - a sensitive issue in the former Soviet republic and one which opponents say will effectively split the country.
A draft law by president Viktor Yanukovich's Regions Party rekindled an emotional debate in Ukraine where Russian is the mother tongue of most of the people in the east and south, while Ukrainian - the state language - predominates in parts of the centre and in the west.
Fists flew among deputies in parliament last night and a crowd of about 150 people rallied outside the parliament building today, many of them bearing slogans in defence of Ukrainian language rights.
"Nobody is threatening the Russian language. It is Ukrainian that has to be saved. This is no joke: yesterday there were fights in parliament but tomorrow there will be fights on the streets," said writer Yarema Goyan, who was one of those protesting.
Opponents of the move regard use of Ukrainian as a touchstone of sovereignty and say a growing encroachment of Russian will only keep Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence.The issue sets the ruling Regions Party - many of whose deputies have a power base in densely populated Russian-speaking industrial areas of the east - at odds with mainstream opposition parties such as that of jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Ms Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party said the proposed law was a cynical move by the Regions to win back disenchanted voters in time for a parliamentary election in October. It warned that the law would lead to Ukrainian being eclipsed as a language in key areas and divide the country in two.
Ms Tymoshenko herself, in a statement issued today, described it as "a crime against Ukraine, the nation, its history and the people".
Regions deputies said the bill reflected reality in their constituencies where the predominant Russian-speakers object to their children learning basic school subjects in Ukrainian and feel career paths are blocked by a lack of good Ukrainian.
"The Regions Party during its election campaign declared that it would include in its programme the need to solve the language problem in our state," said Regions faction leader Oleksander Yefremov. "Our electorate is putting pressure on us."
The law, if it passed, would significantly reinforce the domination of Russian in key regions such as the Donbass mining area near the border with Russia, the southeast and Crimea.
It would accord Russian the status of a "regional" language, allowing people living in Russian-speaking areas to insist that their children received all their basic schooling in Russian.
People in those areas aspiring to, say, a career in regional administration would no longer have to demonstrate a strong command of Ukrainian, according to the draft law. Opponents of the bill say that in those areas where Russian is the main everyday language this would lead to Ukrainian eventually disappearing from use.
The bill will be welcomed in Moscow where authorities complain that language rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine are being violated and have pressed Mr Yanukovich to deliver on an election promise to recognise Russian as a state language.
With opposition deputies blocking procedure today - after opposition parties blocked access to the podium to Regions lawmakers who sought to defend the proposed law yesterday - no vote was possible on the bill and Regions deputies retired to consider their next move.
Mr Yanukovich, whose mother tongue is Russian and whose power base is in the eastern Donbass mining region, promised to make Russian the second state language during his campaign for the presidency in 2009. But he did not press the issue after coming to power in February 2010, something which became a source of reproach by Moscow.
Reuters