Abstract
While people of many nationalities live in Ukraine, Ukrainians and Russians constitute the majority of its population. Territorially, the Ukrainian language is spread unevenly, which results in pronounced bilingualism and language bipolarity. The influence of the Soviet policy of the Russian language dominance is still present in Ukraine. Ukrainian prevails in the sphere of public administration and education. Russian dominates in most mass media. Under such circumstances it is important to maintain conditions for the preservation of the language identity of other ethnic minorities, which would promote the development of linguistic diversity in Ukraine.