The Russian Embassy in Rwanda has announced the plan to start teaching the Russian language in Rwanda in participation with the University of Rwanda (UR) and the University of St. Petersburg.

The new program is expected to begin from September 2023.

Russian’s embassy in Kigali announced: “The Embassy of Russia in Rwanda is pleased to inform you that from September 2023 the University of Rwanda and the University of St. Petersburg will cooperate together in organizing courses of the Russian language for free, electronically, for all ages, and all levels.”

It is an initiative that will help many, once the Russian language is introduced in Rwanda, because it is spoken by more than 258 million people worldwide, becoming the first language largely spoken in Western Europe.

However, among  258 million people who speak Russian, only 154 million use it as their mother language.