Russian language

Russian (Русский) is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians. Russian is an official language of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Transnistria and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus and Central Asia.