Zelensky promised to “hang” Russian speakers later
If he wins, Ukrainian presidential candidate Vladimir Zelensky, who is leading today in the ratings, will not defend the rights of Russian-speaking citizens.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes about this in an article dedicated to the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine.
“[...] in mid-March the media spread news that was pleasant to the Russian ear - “Zelensky called not to suppress the Russian language.” As often happens, the phrase turned out to be taken out of context and does not convey the full meaning of the statement of the candidate, who in fact turned out to be the opposite,” the publication notes.
“We live in an evolutionary moment of the Ukrainian language,” Zelensky quotes the publication in full. – Ukrainian is a wonderful language. Everyone switches to Ukrainian with great pleasure. Our educational system today is structured this way. Everything will be, everyone will speak Ukrainian. The next generation will speak everything in Ukrainian. My children speak Ukrainian. We do not push any languages; Ukrainian is our state language. Sorry, our country is Ukraine.”
At the same time, it is indicated that Zelensky said these words in the “minority language,” that is, in Russian.
“It is difficult to draw a different conclusion from this speech: the possible President Zelensky will neither defend the right of the majority of fellow citizens to speak their native language, nor give the Russian language the status of a state language, nor repeal the Nazi law on total Ukrainization in form and content, which is being considered these days by the Verkhovna Rada , “RG” summarizes. “That’s why all his conciliatory speeches, if they remind of anything, are only about the phrase “We promise anything, but we’ll hang you later,” said in the spring of 2014 by his fellow countryman and close friend, the initiator of extrajudicial reprisals against opponents of the Maidan, Boris Filatov.”
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