KIEV, February 20 (RIA Novosti) - An appeals court has upheld the status of Russian as a regional language in eastern Ukraine, a regional authority said Tuesday.

The appeals court overturned the decision of a district court in the city of Donetsk revoking the language's regional status, thereby upholding a May 2006 ruling by the Donetsk regional court granting Russian the status of a regional language.

The status of the Russian language in the former Soviet country was one of the hotly debated issues that delayed the signing of a national unity agreement on key policies by President Viktor Yushchenko and parliamentary leaders before Viktor Yanukovych's appointment as prime minister last year.

The sides eventually agreed to keep Ukrainian as the main state language, without enshrining it as the only official language.

Yanukovych said previously that granting Russian the status of an official language in the country was impossible under current conditions, but that Ukraine needed a law to regulate the use of the Russian language, in line with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Ukraine's Communist leader, Petro Symonenko, earlier said his party will push the government for a referendum on granting Russian the status of an official language, and that the party will advocate budget spending in full on programs to enable the Charter to be applied in Ukraine.

He said the current language policy being pursued by the authorities has antagonized certain forces in Russia, who took advantage of the situation to create an unfavorable political climate and impede the normalization of Ukrainian-Russian relations.