President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a sarcastic reply to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s July 12 article that claimed that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.”
“I can only say I’m jealous that the president of such a great country can afford to spend so much time on such a volume of work,” Zelensky said at the “Ukraine 30” humanitarian policy forum in Kyiv on July 13.
Zelensky said that he now sees why Putin said that he doesn’t have the time to meet in person.
The Ukrainian president added that while he hasn’t read the 5,000-word article in full, he will do so later and that he would like to meet with Putin to discuss “some of the things he wrote” and provide more information for Putin’s next article.
Zelensky also quipped that it’s hard to say that Russians and Ukrainians share a bond of brotherhood, since Russia is behaving like the Biblical figure Cain, who killed his brother Abel.
Finally, the president said that since Putin wrote something in the Ukrainian language, “we are doing everything right.”
On July 12, Putin published his article on the Kremlin’s website proclaiming “unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” The article, published in both countries’ languages, begins with the statement “Ukrainians and Russians are one people, one whole,” in defiance of the fact that Russian and Ukrainian history is distinct.
Putin’s article echoes standard propaganda distributed by Russia for centuries. The theory has been used to entrench Russian imperialism and undermine Ukrainian and Belarusian national identities.
