MOSCOW, June 23 It is unpleasant to speak Russian in Ukraine , Vladimir Zelensky’s wife Elena said in an interview with The Telegraph.
““Now the trend is the opposite — without Ukrainian you can’t do anything. It’s unpleasant to speak Russian now,” she told the journalist.
According to her, she tries not to speak Russian anymore and believes that other Ukrainians should not use it either.
After the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the country's authorities began to fight not only Soviet history, but also everything related to Russia and the Russian language. In 2019, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law “On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language.” It implies that citizens should use Ukrainian in all areas of life. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov previously stated that the Ukrainian authorities for many years have pursued a course of aggressive de-Russification and forced assimilation, and international organizations ignore discrimination against national minorities, especially against Russian people.