Nikita Poturaev, an advisor to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky suggests Ukraine should rename the Russian Federation into Moscovia on its maps.
“We can start calling them ‘Moscovia’ on our maps. What is stopping us? These are symbolic actions that change the discourse. We can live in other peoples’ discourses forever. We need to create your own ones. Their country had had different names for long – Moscovia, Tartary. They want to go back to basics – so let’s help them,” he said in an interview with Ukrlife.TV.
In 2015, a group of Ukrainian MPs – members of the Radical Party – submitted a draft bill prohibiting the use of the name ‘Russian Federation’ in the territory of Ukraine. However, it has not been considered until today. Moscovia is a name referring to the medieval Grand Duchy of Moscow.
In response, Russian MP Frants Klintsevich, a Belarusian-born politician of Polish descent, tried to defend the name of the country in which he has been living for many years.
“One can only feel sorry for the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. He will definitely not get anywhere with such advisors. Instead of helping him to get out of the problems Ukraine is up to its neck in, the adviser is selling such a dumb thing. It is ridiculous,” he said on Facebook.
Sticking to old Soviet traditions, many Russian netizens and even media outlets still use old names and spelling variants, i.e. Byelorussia instead of Belarus and Kiev instead of Kyiv.
