MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th April, 2021) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik in an interview that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to be living in a bubble if he is indeed unaware of the obstacles that the Russian language and the Orthodox church are facing in his country.
Earlier this week, Zelenskyy told reporters that Ukraine had no issues with the Russian language and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and expressed readiness to discuss the matters with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"You know, shame on the one who I always thought was a smart man for saying that the Russian language is facing no problems [in Ukraine] and that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has no difficulties functioning in Ukraine," Lavrov said, adding that "maybe he [Zelenskyy] is not briefed on anything at all, in that case, he lives in some kind of closed world."
In May 2019, Ukraine's then-President Petro Poroshenko signed a new language law that expanded the use of Ukrainian in public life. The law makes the use of Ukrainian mandatory for state and local authorities, educational institutions and the service sector. Moscow has criticized the legislative measures taken by Kiev, saying they targeted the Russian language, which is spoken by the vast majority of Ukrainian nationals and is native to many of them.
