The Russian language needs to receive a legal status in the former USSR countries, said Special Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), reported TASS news agency of Russia.

“Our first task is the certain constitutional and practical strengthening of the Russian language in neighboring [ex-Soviet] countries,” she said.

Mitrofanova recalled that, at best, Russian is defined as the language of interethnic communication within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—which includes Armenia, but this does not have a precise and clear legal explanation.

“In some [former USSR] countries—in Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic countries—the new generation doesn’t speak Russian,” she added.

Eleonora Mitrofanova also noted that, according to the UN, a total of 138 million people—not counting Russia—live in the CIS, and 61 million of them speak Russian.