"Pig's Tongue": A language controversy erupted during sports competitions in Transcarpathia (video).

In the village of Vyshka, located in Transcarpathia, a language conflict occurred during the Ukrainian Championship in alpine skiing for people with disabilities, involving members of the Association of Professional Ski Instructors and Ukrainian athletes. This was reported by journalist and parabiathlete Vladislav Pershuta.

According to him, during lunch in the hotel complex's dining room, he made a remark to a group that was loudly conversing in Russian, after which he witnessed open disregard for the Ukrainian language.

"At a nearby table, there was a group of people I didn’t know, including a woman featured in the video, who were cheerfully drinking alcohol and... noisily speaking in Russian. I politely asked the strangers to lower their voices in Russian or to speak Ukrainian instead. I appealed to the fact that this is a public space where I do not wish to hear hostile speech," the witness noted, emphasizing that the misunderstanding was supposedly resolved, after which he went to his hotel room, and further events unfolded without his involvement.

Afterwards, as stated in the report, the woman discussed the situation with acquaintances who expressed disdain for the Ukrainian language during their conversation. This was witnessed by Viktor Halan-Vlashchuk, the director of the Volyn Regional Center for Physical Culture and Sports for Persons with Disabilities "Invasport", who had just entered the dining room for lunch.

"This brat won’t make me speak that pig language," the woman allegedly stated.

The director of Volyn "Invasport" asked for clarification and again heard, as claimed in the post, that the woman considered the Ukrainian language to be a "pig language."

This moment was not captured on video, Vladislav Pershuta noted, as no one anticipated such a development, thus he urged people to take his word for it. He recounted that the conflict escalated and nearly led to a fight.

"We had to call the authorities. In the end, we went with them to the station. We explained why the incident occurred and filed a report," the athlete stated.

Vladislav Pershuta informed that the police accepted the report and are determining whether there are signs of criminal or administrative violations in their actions.

The journalist also apologized for misleading regarding the prohibition of communication in Russian in public spaces, acknowledging that his appeal to the laws in this case was inaccurate.

Who caused the scandal

In turn, Viktor Halan-Vlashchuk commented to "Volyn News" that the individuals who instigated the scandal were judges of the all-Ukrainian competitions for younger age categories in alpine skiing, held under the auspices of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Federation of Ski Sports of Ukraine. He noted that during events organized under the patronage of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, participants are required to communicate in Ukrainian throughout the competition, as outlined in the relevant regulatory documents.

"I find it necessary to appeal to the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Federation to revoke such judges' licenses, preventing them from participating in other competitions, as their behavior is unacceptable," Viktor Halan-Vlashchuk remarked.

He added that five soldiers from the team witnessed this conflict, and it was particularly unpleasant for them to hear such remarks.

It should be noted that at the time of this report, the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language Taras Kremin, the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, and the police of Transcarpathia had not commented on this conflict.

Recall that an employee of one of the branches of "PrivatBank" in the Rivne region refused to serve a client because he was speaking to her in Russian.