Murat Zyazikov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Cyprus:

Without official status in Cyprus, Russian is one of the most widely used foreign languages here, which is due, among other things, to the large number (over 100,000 in the south and about 50,000 in the north of Cyprus) and the significant involvement of the Russian-speaking diaspora in the cultural, educational, business and IT spheres of the island’s life.

The top leadership of the Russian Federation attaches high priority to the promotion of the state language abroad. As President Vladimir Putin noted, preserving the Russian language, literature and our culture is a matter of national security and preserving our own identity in the global world.