KIEV, Oct. 11 – Law enforcement agencies are looking into why three Ukrainian western regions have rejected legislation allowing wider use of Russian and other ethnic languages, and may launch criminal prosecutions of local leaders.

Vadym Kolesnychenko, a member of the ruling Regions Party who sponsored the legislation, said Prosecutor General’s Office will shortly appeal to court to open the prosecution. This comes after the prosecutors have unsuccessfully demanded the law to be enforced in the regions.

“Here is the thing: the legislation is in effect throughout all territory of Ukraine since August 10,” Kolesnychenko told local television in Sevastopol. “If any regional mister tries to skip the law – we have covered everything – officials will be made accountable.”

The comment increases concerns a confrontation may escalate between the regional authorities in western Ukraine and the central government, which has been pushing to promote the law across Ukraine.

The Regions Party pushed the law through Parliament in July to increase the use of the Russian language in Ukraine to win support from Russian-speaking voters in the country’s eastern regions.

But opposition groups said the law will discourage the use of Ukrainian language, hurt by centuries of Russian language domination, and that may have a devastating effect on the country’s future.

Despite sweeping street protests in Kiev and other cities, President Viktor Yanukovych signed the legislation on August 8.

The Lviv regional council on Tuesday voted to declare the language law to be invalid in the region.

Iryna Farion, a nationalist lawmaker in the council, said the law had “anti-state essence” and was approved in July with “gross violations.”

Another two local legislatures, including Ternopil regional council and Ivano-Frankivsk city council, earlier this year appealed to the Constitutional Court against the language law raising similar concerns.

The legislation was approved on July 31 and allowed regions to approve the wider use of Russian or any other language is it gets support of at least 10% of population in the region. This opens the use of such languages in schools, courts and local governments.

Regional council in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Odessa, Luhansk, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Khaarkiv regions, as well as cities of Odessa, Sevastopol, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Yalta, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, voted to approve the use of Russian as the regional language. (tl/ez)