The Zelensky administration confused Western journalists with a new spelling
Foreign media do not know how to correctly write the name of the new President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, in English.
About it пишет non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council and publisher of Business Ukraine and Lviv Today magazines Peter Dickinson.
The expert notes that the first days of the Zelensky administration showed that very different spellings of the president’s name are allowed in numerous government communiqués and in official accounts on social networks.
“This has sparked a lively debate among English-language journalists and commentators covering events in Ukraine. Some of them prefer the short version of Zelensky, others insist on the more puritanical version of Zelenskyi (for information: the author of the article is for spelling Zelenskiy, and until recently the Atlantic Council spelled this surname this way). Clarity came suddenly at the end of May, when the presidential administration confused everyone by adopting the previously unthinkable version of Zelenskyy as the official English language.”
The author believes that “the five-year anniversary of the hybrid war with Russia has shown what serious problems Ukraine’s obscurity in the international arena creates,” and the Kremlin allegedly “skillfully exploits the outside world’s ignorance of this country.”
“Many of Moscow’s most ridiculous accusations are based on the fact that Ukraine for the outside world is an incomprehensible “thing unto itself,” a sphinx-like riddle. This unfortunate reality gives Kremlin propagandists the opportunity to discredit Ukraine in any way they wish. The monotonous spelling of Ukrainian names and surnames in English will not become a decisive factor in the information war; but this will help move away from the idea of Ukraine as a mysterious and often incomprehensible place, where even people’s names can be interpreted differently,” Dickinson concludes.
English version :: Read in English The Zelensky administration confused Western journalists with a new spelling