Russian news agency ITAR-TASS quoted an unknown source related to the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers published “Olexandr Turchinov’s (who was appointed by the Supreme Council of Ukraine “Verkhovna Rada” as an acting president) administration ordered all Ukrainian state agencies to delete Russian versions of their official websites”. They set a deadline as 10th of March 2014.
According to ITAR-TASS news agency 14 crucial state institutions have fallen under this order. They include Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Social Policy and others. Also Russian versions would have to be gone from the websites of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine.
They quoted the unknown source again “Russian language disappeared from official websites of executive authorities with special status: Security Service of Ukraine, the Antimonopoly Committee, etc”
The same message was published by many other Russian media. For example a popular TV Channel LifeNews. Here is a link to this story that was followed by many aggressive comments towards Ukraine.
StopFake.org is going to prove that this is not true with respect to each one of these websites.
You can enlarge every single screen shot by just clicking on it.
Ministry of Health
http://www.moz.gov.ua/ua/portal/
Russian version on this website does not exist. When we tried swapping “ua” to “ru” in the address bar it changes back to “ua”. According to еру Internet Archive Wayback Machine (that lets users see archived versions of the websites across time) the Russian version of the website has not been updated since 2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20101210103949/http://www.moz.gov.ua/ru/portal/
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs has Ukrainian and English version of the website. There is no switch button to Russian. When we tried typing http://mfa.gov.ua/ru in the address bar it brings up Error 404. Wayback Machine shows that such website never existed.
http://web.archive.org/web/http://mfa.gov.ua/ru
Ministry of Defense
Ministry of Defense does have a switch button from Ukrainian to Russian, which does not work – the website stays in Ukrainian language.
http://www.mil.gov.ua/?lang=ru
Wayback Machine shows that this website was working like that on the 14th of February when the ministry was still under the guidance of a member of Victor Yanukovich’s team Pavel Lebedev.
Last time the Russian version of this website has been seen on the 7th of October 2013.
http://web.archive.org/web/20131007095620/http://www.mil.gov.ua/?lang=ru
Ministry of Finance
Russian version of Ministry of Finance website is working and being updated properly. StopFake promises to check it again after the 10th of March 2014 and let the readers know if it stops working.
http://www.minfin.gov.ua/control/ru/index
Ministry of Industrial Policy
Russian version of the website does not exist. When we tried typing in “ru” instead of “ua” in the address bar it shows Error 404. Wayback Machine shows that this address never existed: http://web.archive.org/web/http://industry.gov.ua/ru
Moreover, Wayback Machine shows that the switch from Ukrainian to Russian language did not exist. Here is a screenshot as of 16th of February when the ministry was still under the guidance of the team of Victor Yanukovich.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140216114032/http://industry.gov.ua/
Ministry of Social Policy
http://www.mlsp.gov.ua/labour/control/uk/index
When we tried typing in “ru” instead of “ua” in the address bar we saw a Russian header, footer and a sidebar with an empty content. Wayback Machine shows that this has been the situation for many years, even when the switch button to Russian and English existed. Moreover, the English version of the website was never working properly either.
http://web.archive.org/web/20120122115637/http://www.mlsp.gov.ua/control/ru/index
Supreme Court of Ukraine
On the right hand side there is a language switch button from Ukrainian to English, but not to Russian. When we tried substituting “en” to “ru” on this link http://www.scourt.gov.ua/clients/vsu/vsuen.nsf it brings up Error 404. Wayback Machine shows that the switch to Russian language never existed:
http://web.archive.org/web/20140208061906/http://www.scourt.gov.ua/
Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine
The website does not have a switch to Russian language. They do have the one to English, but it is not functioning. When we try to type in “ru” in the address bar it brings up Error 404. Wayback Machine shows that the switch button to Russian did not exist before. Here is a screen shot as of 11th of February when the court was under the guidance of the team of Mr. Yanukovich.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140211003304/http://vgsu.arbitr.gov.ua/
Security Service of Ukraine
http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/uk/index
The switch button to Russian does not exist, however you can still access the russian version of the website by substituting «ua» to «ru» in the adress bar: http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/ru/index
The last peace of news on the Russian version was on the 23rd May 2007 about fighting international drug trafficking.
Wayback Machine shows that on the 7th of February, when the Security Service was still under the guiadance of Mr. Yanukovich’s team the russian version did not exist.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140207233241/http:/www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/uk/index
Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine
http://www.amc.gov.ua/amku/control/main/uk/index
The switch button to Russian does not exist, however you can still access the russian version of the website by substituting «ua» to «ru» in the adress bar. When we do this we can see that the website has not been updated since 5th July 2011.
http://www.amc.gov.ua/amku/control/main/ru/index
Wayback Machine shows that on the 16th February, when the Security Service was still under the guiadance of Mr. Yanukovich’s team the russian version did not exist.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140216111052/http://www.amc.gov.ua/amku/control/main/uk/index
StopFake.org team is thanking our colleagues from Fakecontrol.org who paid attention to this disinformation first.
