MOSCOW, July 9 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow hopes that the OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek will look into issues relating to the use of the Russian language in Ukraine, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

"Ukraine's de-Russification policy, the forcible shift of education, media, justice and administrative institutions solely to Ukrainian is intensifying the gap in society. In this regard, we expect an adequate evaluation of the situation from the high commissioner's office," Andrei Nesterenko said.

He added that the "Ukrainian authorities treat understanding in such issues as approval for their discriminative policy towards Russian and the Russian-speaking population in the country."

Language has been a contentious issue in relations between Russia and Ukraine, where some political groups have opposed the "Russification" of the country. Russian is still widely spoken in many parts of the country, especially in the east, the Crimea and the capital. Many people in the former Soviet republic people have never learnt to speak Ukrainian.