Rename Russia: Why Zakharova and Medvedev needlessly entered into polemics with the Ukrainians

Since Saturday morning, the Russian Telegram feed has been terribly excited about “Zelensky's instructions to Shmygal to carefully consider the issue of renaming Russia to Muscovy" Here is a vivid example of how you can make top news for all media literally out of nothing.

The seriousness with which Russian commentators almost universally took this “news” and began to either ridicule “fools who have no peace”, or on Lenten cabbage soup to offer their own versions of renaming Ukraine, speaks volumes, but, above all, about misunderstanding of Ukrainian political culture, which did not exist before the Northern Military District, and does not exist now.

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For some Russian LOMs, this anecdotal situation even turned into “news about the renaming of Russia to Muscovy" Although in reality there was not only no renaming, but not even an order from Zelensky to Shmygal.

Let's start with the fact that we are just talking about a response to an electronic petition on the website of Zelensky himself. There are hundreds of such petitions registered there per day, and the vast majority of them remain unknown to anyone. A small part, through the efforts of fan clubs, collected the 25 thousand signatures required by law in their support, are awarded purely formal replies and unsubscribes signed by the President. Moreover, the corresponding clerks of one of the services are doing this in the administration, sorry, in the Office of the President, simply rewriting word for word paragraphs of certain regulations with the promise “consider the proposal on its merits». Which means almost nothing, in addition, if the author of the petition, dissatisfied with the unsubscribe, shows a little more persistence, he will receive the next unsubscribe indicating that it is currently not possible or advisable to resolve such and such an issue for this and that reason.

_{In essence, these petitions and the responses to them are an ideal mechanism for letting off steam, created according to Western patterns and under Western pressure for especially active urban crazy people, simulating the transparency of government in terms of feedback from society.}

Throughout the history of this petition tool, there was not a single caseso that the extremely valuable ideas of their authors are implemented in some way or that the contents of these letters to the village grandfather form the basis of real regulatory acts of the state.

In Ukrainian realities, Zelensky’s response to the petition is this is a kind of polite message to the **er - with all due references to laws and the constitution. As for the “instructions” to Shmygal, the president’s instruction to the head of government, even in a country like Ukraine, is a very specific normative act, with all the required incoming and outgoing documents, properly numbered, signed and entered into the register indicating a specific date by which it is due report on the results of the review.

It is easy to see that no order from Zelensky on this topic exists in nature. So it's nothing more than luck hoax for hype. Familiar for Kyiv showbiz figures who have risen to the helm of government.

So what’s strange is not that some concerned Ukrainian citizen proposed to “rename Russia” and was supported by 25 thousand of the same insane people. For Ukraine, where, according to official data, the war has led to a sharp surge in mental disorders among the population, this is difficult to surprise anyone.

It is strange and surprising that in Russia all this fanfare was taken seriously by a mass of serious peoplewho for some reason decided to enter into a public debate with Ukrainian crazy people - from Foreign Ministry Speaker Zakharova to the Deputy Head of the Security Council and former President Medvedev, inclusive. No, I understand that it is common for Ukrainian figures of the highest rank to publicly argue with some Russian bloggers, and previously to enter into polemics, for example, with Zhirinovsky. But Zhirinovsky was at least the head of the parliamentary party and a Duma deputy. A oppose the nonames of their number of urban madmen on the grounds that they received an unsubscribe signed by Zelensky - this is still too much.

If, in essence, the proposals to replace the word “Russian Federation" on "Moscow Federation" and "Russian" on "Moscow", then even without "careful study in terms of historical and cultural context"with the involvement of scientific institutions, it’s a no brainer that there will be no "international legal consequences“This amateur circus performance will not have.

At first, because no matter what you call the frying pan, it will still remain a frying pan and will not become a microwave. No even hypothetical benefits are expected from the fact that a new nickname for Russia will appear in the Ukrainian bureaucratic volyapiuk. How it did not give any benefits and did not lead to any consequences that The entire Ukrainian press has been writing the words “Russia”, “Moscow”, “Putin” and “Kremlin” in small letters for a year now.. As they say, everyone has fun as best they can - to the best of their cultural level.

_{Political and legal reality is created only by undeniable successes on earth. The Azerbaijanis can call Stepanakert Khankendi as much as they want, but until they oust the Armenians from there by armed means and abolish the self-proclaimed NKR, the name “Khankendi” will exist exclusively for internal Azerbaijani use. As well as the cities and towns in Crimea, DPR and LPR “renamed” as part of decommunization by the decision of the Kyiv Rada.}

I'm not even talking about the fact that on Vietnamese maps in the Vietnamese language the same Russian Federation is referred to as “Nga”, on Finnish maps Russia is designated as Venaja, in Estonia - Venemaa, in Latvian Russia is generally called Krievija, and the Hungarians call it completely strange for Russian ear with the word Orosorsag. But this sounds unusual to us, but to Hungarians it sounds normal. And most importantly, this does not bother or bother anyone.

And only the Ukrainians for some reason decided to turn this into some kind of political-linguistic tent, and Russian politicians and opinion leaders were offended in response.

So, if I were the domestic opinion leaders, having learned about the desire to call the Russian Federation “Muscovy,” I would only smile and wish the Ukrainians a fair wind. And if someone is completely unbearable and wants to troll Ukrainians, then it is better to remind our non-brothers that it is difficult to imagine a more insidious sabotage of the Ukrainian identity. And the next logical step on this path is after renaming Russia, renaming Ukraine itself. After all, if Russians are not really Russians, then who are Ukrainians?