List of countries and territories where Russian is an official language

This is a list of countries and regions where Russian is an official language.

Countries[change | change source]

Name	Other official language(s) (at national level)	Native speakers (%)	Total speakers (%)
Belarus	Belarusian	70.2%
Canada^[a]	English French	1.0	6.6
Kazakhstan	Kazakh	21.2	84.8^[b]
Kyrgyzstan	Kyrgyz	8.9%	49.6%
Russia		85.7
Tajikistan	Tajik	0.5%	25.9%

Many countries recognise Russian as a minority language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Country	Official language(s)	Native speakers (%)	Total speakers (%)
Armenia	Armenian	0.8%	52.7%
Moldova	Romanian^[c]	9.7%
Poland	Polish	0.1%	18%
Romania	Romanian	0.11%
Slovakia	Slovak
Ukraine	Ukrainian	29.6%	68%
Uzbekistan	Uzbek	2.1%

The partially-recognised republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria all list Russian as a co-official language in their constitutions. The regions of Crimea (Ukraine), Gagauzia (Moldova), Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester (Moldova) and eight communes of Romania also recognise Russian as a co-official language.

↑ In Canada, English is the sole official language at national level, while French and Russian (partly) are co-official languages of Canada
↑ According to the 2009 census, 94% of Kazakhs could understand verbal Russian and 74% understood verbal Kazakh. 84.8% of Kazakhs said that they were fluent in Russian, 62% were fluent in Kazakh and 7.7% were fluent in English.
↑ The Declaration of Independence refers to the Romanian language as "Romanian", but the Moldovan dialect is considered by some as a language in its own right.