Verkhovna Rada Deputy Alexey Goncharenko referred to an incident with the coach of a youth football team, who was fined for speaking Russian during a club practice
MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. Vladimir Zelensky, his entourage, and most of the ministers and deputies of the Servants of the People ruling party speak Russian when they are not on camera, while ordinary Ukrainians are fined for speaking it, said Verkhovna Rada Deputy Alexey Goncharenko (on Russian list of terrorists and extremists).
He referred to an incident with the coach of a youth football team, who was fined for speaking Russian during a club practice.
“Vladimir Zelensky communicates in his office in Russian, most ministers communicate in Russian, most of the Servants of the People communicates in Russian. Is that okay? There are no fines. But the football coach has to pay,” Goncharenko said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian government is openly trying to extinguish the Russian language. The country has a law “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language,” which significantly limits the use of Russian and the languages of national minorities. For instance, it prohibits teaching in Russian, and the authorities insist that even during breaks in school children should communicate in Ukrainian. The language ombudsman regularly reports on fines and even the dismissal of teachers who conduct lessons in Russian.
At the same time, it has become apparent that officials talk among themselves in Russian. For example, when last November the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) launched a large-scale operation called “Midas” to uncover a major corruption scheme, it published audio recordings in which the participants in the scheme — many of whom were people from Zelensky’s inner circle — discussed their plans in Russian.
Similarly, former prime minister and leader of the opposition Batkivshchina party Yulia Timoshenko, who positions herself as a defender of the Ukrainian language and always uses it publicly in her speeches, was noticed using Russian. Timoshenko became involved in the case of attempted bribery of deputies. In the recordings published by the investigation, she also talks with other parliamentarians in Russian, and they respond in the same language.
© 2026 TASS
https://tass.com/world/2170221/amp
Ukrainian Source: https://ukranews.com/en/amp/news/1183613-during-an-interview-with-an-american-media-outlet-zelenskyy-switched-to-russian-while-speaking-with
Too lazy to learn Ukrainian but wasting Ukrainian lives for no progress at all on the front. What a hero… 🤮
That’s an astoundingly stupid statement, even coming from you.
The part about Yulia is bullshit. 😇
That’s what happens when you post shit from TASS…
I’m embarrassed.
Did you miss the Ukrainian link? 😁
Yes I saw it but you chose to use the TASS text in your article. You could have used the Ukrainian version.
No, he couldn’t – that doesn’t contain any of the lies that the Tass article contains.
Especially shit that is 3 months old.
You think UT is the right medium for putinaZi kremkrapper articles from Tass?
One that refers to “Vladimir Zelensky?”
Zel comes from an almost 100% Russian-speaking area. He studied Ukrainian after becoming president. He also learned English.
Of course he still speaks russian in private, it’s his first language. Same as many in the government and many in the ZSU. Many Ukrainian soldiers are russian speaking Ukrainians, ethnic russians, Tatars, Georgians and from other ex SU states who don’t speak Ukrainian.
One of the biggest putinaZi lies is “we are protecting russians and russian speakers.”
100% of the people they murdered in Mariupol were russian speakers. The final death figure will be a staggering amount; up to 100.000.
More than 25% of Ukrainians still speak russian as a first language. That’s nothing sinister. It’s simply the result of being occupied for centuries.
Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson were 90% russian speaking cities before putler’s naziism became apparent. They have been steadily moving to 100% Ukrainian since then.
The Balts hate Russia, so do the Georgians, but many of the older ones still speak russian because of their colonial history.
If i’m a true patriot, i abandon it. Period. In particular as a president.
A blatant lie from Tass.
Ensuring it’s the state language says nothing about stopping private use.
So, an official event.
Clearly, teaching students should be in the state language.
So, private conversations.
That article just mentions that during a recent interview President Zelenskyy briefly switched to russian in an aside to an aide. It contains none of the other BS from the Tass article.
It does say the following, which you of course neglect to mention: